ABSTRACT

The history of i.v. fat emulsions can be traced as far back as 1873 when Holder infused milk in cholera patients. In the 1920s, Yamakawa (1) in Japan produced a product called ‘‘Janol’’ from caster oil, butter, fish oil, and lecithin which had many side effects. It was not until 1945 that Stare et al. (2) produced the first relatively non-toxic emulsion using purified soy phospholipids. This product was further refined by Schuberth and Wretlind (3) in 1961, who made 1506 infusions in 422 patients using a soybean oil emulsion made with purified egg phospholipids with no untoward reactions

in humans. This led to the product, Intralipid, which was approved in Sweden in 1961. Intralipid was approved in the US in 1975 and Liposyn was approved in the US in 1979.