Clearance of pneumococcal organisms after repair of injured spleens.

Although the safety of splenic preservation has been demonstrated in a small number of cases, the follow-up in these cases has been too short to determine whether the patients are adequately protected from sepsis. The purpose of this study was to test the ability of the spleen to clear pneumococcal organisms after repairing lacerations with a surface hemostatic agent. Three groups of 20 New Zealand white rabbits were studied. Group I animals received sham operations, group II animals were given total splenectomies, and group III animals had splenic lacerations repaired with Collastat (American Medical Products Corp., Freehold, New Jersey), a local hemostatic agent. Three months later, when challenged with intracardiac Streptococcus pneumoni type III, the animals without spleens failed to clear pneumococcal organisms. This spleen-intact and spleen-repaired animals, however, both cleared pneumococcal organisms in a normal fashion.