Postprandial total serum bile acid concentrations in cystic fibrosis.

In recent years, several workers have reported that a single 2-hour postprandial 
total serum bile acid (TSBA) concentration, in a variety of liver 
disease states, is a more sensitive index of deranged liver function 
than are the 'conventional' serum liver function tests. This observation seemed 
to us to provide a challenging situation for the assessment of 
TSBA concentrations in cystic fibrosis. The distribution of results for the 
CF patients (mean TSBA concentration 27.0 micromol/l) and for the age-matched 
controls (mean concentration 19.9 micromol/l) shows a wider range for the 
CF group. Statistical analysis, however, of these two groups shows no 
significant difference between them. Many factors affect both the size and 
distribution of the bile acid pool in CF, and a consideration 
of these factors may go some way towards explaining the rather 
unspectacular TSBA results. 