HOW SMALL IS THE FUNCTIONAL VARIABILITY OF LIVER SINUSOIDS

Published experimental results on steady elimination of galactose by isolated rat livers perfused at different flow rates, predicted earlier from a model of hepatic elimination with functionally identical sinusoids, are assessed in terms of a more general model. An upper limit on the functional variability (heterogeneity) of liver sinusoids is deduced from the experimental results, and conditions for the detection of the actual variability by the same type of experiment are discussed quantitatively. © 1979.