Pulmonary venous compartment of the airways circulation.

Bronchial circulation has three components: a systemic arterial component represented by the bronchial arteries; a pulmonary venous component represented by the pulmonary veins; and a systemic venous component represented by the bronchial veins. We have used vascular casting, microscope dissection coupled with tracers and light microscopy to define the detailed anatomy of the pulmonary venous compartment of the bronchial circulation. We have found that the extrapulmonary drainage territory of the pulmonary veins correlate with the forming pattern of the right superior pulmonary vein. In the case of a large apical venous trunk, pulmonary veins drain the venous blood of the main bronchia, terminal portion of the trachea and of the tracheobronchial lymph nodes. In the case of the systemic venous drainage of the extrapulmonary airways, we constantly found a pulmonary component which drains the venous blood from the subcarinal lymph nodes and the medial side of the main bronchia.

Clinical and morphological aspects of sinovitis in early rheumatoid arthritis.

The earliest joint changes in rheumatoid arthritis occur in the synovial membrane, leading to development of an unsuppurated proliferative synovitis. This study is based on 33 cases of early rheumatoid arthritis for which we have investigated a series of clinical and morphological parameters. For the examined cases we found that the disease incidence reached its maximum in fifth and sixth decades of life, predominantly in females, over half of cases being diagnosed in the first six months from the onset of the disease. Histopathological study of synovial membrane samples showed characteristic morphological changes but unspecific for the disease, represented by the synoviocytes proliferation, inflammatory infiltrates, fibrinoid necrosis, fibroblasts proliferation and vascular changes. Reaching composite histological score may be useful by providing some information on the severity of the disease.

CD20cy and CD45RO immunoexpression in early rheumatoid arthritis synovium.

In this paper, we studied 15 cases of early rheumatoid arthritis presenting with inflammatory lesions in different degrees of evolution. We want to highlight B- and T-lymphocytes in synovial tissue collected from patients diagnosed with early rheumatoid arthritis, to establish the pattern of their distribution, possibly in relation to local neovascularisation to determine the role played by these types of cells. The pathological samples were represented by synovial membrane biopsy fragments, which were examined by histopathological and immunohistochemical methods. We noticed a perivascular distribution of lymphocyte infiltrate, up to formation of lymphoid follicles with germinal centers. There is a close interdependence between B- and T-lymphocytes in these lesions, and their presence in the synovial membrane in relation to newly formed blood vessels facilitates their action and their chemical mediators. Studying the interdependence of different types of lymphocytes and their connection with blood vessels may generate new therapeutic targets.

Study of the correlation between newborn and fetus ages and some morphometric cervical vertebral arches indices.

Establishing the newborn and fetus age by taking into account of cervical vertebral bony parts dimensions is useful in anthropology and anthropometry as well. In the present study, we tried to determine some morphometric indices of fifth bony part's cervical vertebral arch in both fetus and newborn. We analyzed their correlation with the age of the subjects studied. We used a set of five newborn and five fetuses of six-seven months. We removed the fifth right cervical vertebral hemiarch from each subject. Images of vertebral bony parts hemiarches were acquisitioned, processed and measured by a morphometric Lucia M specialized soft. We measured the bony parts surface area, we traced the hemiarch frame triangle, and we measured the angles, the sides and the frame-triangle surface area, for each hemiarch. By analyzing the data we succeeded in revealing that the ratio between the anteromedial angle value and the opposite side length of that angle correlates to the fetus and newborn ages. Therefore, we consider this ratio as being an anthropometric index useful in deciding upon the fetus and newborn age.

Venous circulation of the bronchial wall.

Bronchial supply plays an important role in both the protecting mechanisms and the pathogenic ones of many chronic inflammatory, infections or ischemic diseases of the lung. However, little is known regarding the bronchial supply development; the appearance of the connections to the functional pulmonary supply; the territory supplied by the bronchial veins. In this study, we follow the distribution of the pulmonary veins branches at the level of the subcarinal airways and their relationship to the bronchial veins in the human lungs. For studying the venous supply of the airways, we used the corrosion and colored gelatin injection methods followed by microdissection by means of an operator microscope. Venous circulation of the intrapulmonary airways is mainly tributary to the pulmonary vein branches. Venous circulation of the extrapulmonary airways is tributary to both the pulmonary and the bronchial veins. Taking into account the difference of sizes, we consider that, under physiologic conditions, the main venous collector is represented by the pulmonary veins.