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Healing Rate of Hepatic Amebic Abscesses: Theory and Scan Measurements

Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut
Letterman General Hospital, The Presidio of San Francisco, California

Correspondence: For reprints contact: Richard P. Spencer, Dept. of Radiology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St., New Haven, Conn. 06510.

ABSTRACT

Using the assumption that the rate of volume change of a chemotherapeutically sterilized hepatic amebic abscess was proportional to its surface area, an expression was derived which predicted a linear decrease in the radius with time.

A more general derivation was given, for which the above case (of surface-area rate-limited growth) was shown to be but one special solution. The resulting equation contains, in addition to a term for the original size of the lesion, two coefficients (a power term and a rate/day). Hence, the rate of healing likely depends upon factors other than the initial size of the lesion alone. This appears to be borne out by clinical observations.

For five cases, assuming the change in the radius to be linear with time, the values varied from 0.048 to 0.011 cm/day. It was pointed out that this rate term might be a function of time or of the radius. These rates of growth were quite rapid and shown to compare with that of fetal development.