How the three arches of the foot intercorrelate.

BACKGROUND: The foot is composed of medial, lateral and transverse arches which, particularly the medial arch, provide it with the ability to function both as a flexible and rigid structure for proper locomotion. Arches of the foot, as well as their effect on lower extremity function, have been studied. However, quantitative data on the relationship between these arches still remain scanty. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to examine how the three arches of the foot intercorrelate. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy-six participants (58 males, 18 females) were recruited to participate in the study. Bilateral weight-bearing lateral radiographs of the right foot were taken from each participant. Navicular heights (NH), medial cuneiform height (MCH), calcaneal inclination angle (CIA) and calcaneal-first metatarsal angle (C1MA) were measured to represent the medial arch. The lateral arch was represented by cuboid height (CH) and calcaneal-fifth metatarsal angle (C5MA) whereas; MCH and CH represented the transverse arch. Mean difference of variables between males and females was compared using independent t-test while the correlation between the variables was determined using Pearson correlation. RESULTS: All the variables were not significantly related to gender. Significant moderate to excellent linear correlations were observed between the variables. CIA showed the strongest correlation with C1MA (r = -0.90) and C5MA (r = -0.84) whereas, CH had the least correlation with other variables. CONCLUSIONS: The moderate to excellent correlations between the variables indicate that deformation or elevation of the medial arch may consequently result in similar movements of the lateral and transverse arches and vice versa.

[Accidental thymic involution in the growing body under the effect of different types of stressors].

Using the quantitative immunohistochemistry, the immunomodulatory effect of different types of stressors (physical and psychoemotional) on the thymus of growing experimental animals was assessed. Sprague-Dawley rats aged 21 day were exposed either to physical (water immersion) or emotional "expectation" stress for 5 hours daily during 7 consecutive days. After the final exposure to stress, animals were sacrificed, thymus was obtained for weighting and was processed for routine histology and immunohistochemistry (CD3, CD8, ED1, PCNA) with subsequent automatic image analysis. The finding obtained have demonstrated severe accidental thymic involution in both groups of experimental animals, which was more prominent under the effect of the physical stressor as compared to "purely" psychoemotional stressor. The major factors of poststress thymic hypoplasia were the increased apoptosis of the cortical thymocytes and inhibition of their proliferation, but not their increased transport to peripheral immune organs.