Free and Combined Sulfanilamide in Material Drained from the Human Biliary Tract

The concentrations of free and of combined (presumably acetyl) sulfanilamide have been determined in the material collected through T-tubes inserted in the bile ducts of human subjects after operations upon the biliary system. Bile was clarified by a mixture of tri-chloracetic and phosphotungstic acids. Free sulfanilamide was determined by the method of Marshall and Litehfield 1 after the addition of acetone to the filtrate from the pigments etc. removed by this procedure. In the determination of combined sulfanilamide, the filtrate was treated with hydrochloric acid and hydrolized for an hour in a boiling water bath before the diazo reaction was carried out. Both free and acetyl sulfanilamide∗ were added to the bile and were recovered quantitatively by this procedure, but the method of precipitating could not be considered as wholly satisfactory, for a trace of pigment (apparently biliverdin) was present after treatment in a fair number of specimens from some of the patients studied. The method of Marshall and Litehfield was also used in the study of urine specimens collected simultaneously with the bile from a number of the patients. Blood analyses were carried out by the technique of Bratton and Marshall. 2

Although the clarification of some of the bile specimens was not satisfactory the results of 10 studies upon 5 patients agreed closely together, and justify the following statements. There was no compound in the clarified bile which gave a reaction with the diazo technique used. Shortly after one to 2 g of sulfanilamide were given by mouth, the free drug appeared in the bile draining from the T-tube, but regularly in a concentration lower than that present in the blood. This finding differs from results previously reported upon human bile from the gall bladder 3 for the concentration of free sulfanilamide in such material is frequently higher than it is in the blood.