The corrected circumference of human pulmonary trunk and arteries in relation to the size of aorta and principal bronchi.
The corrected circumference of the pulmonary trunk, its branches and ascending aorta as well as the maximum diameter of the principal bronchi, were measured in 120 human fresh cadavers of subjects (60 males and 60 females) aged between 27 and 91 years, died of natural causes. The statistical analysis of the obtained data yielded the following main results: 1) the corrected circumference of the pulmonary trunk, smaller than that of the aorta, is not statistically correlated with the age of the subjects and does not present significant degrees between the 2 sexes; 2) the right and left pulmonary arteries have a corrected circumference quite similar in the 2 sexes and statistically correlated with that of the vessel of origin; 3) both the right pulmonary artery and the right principal bronchus have sizes greater than the left ones, possibly due to the greatest volume and weight of the right lung; 4) the lackness of a correlation between the size of the pulmonary arteries and those of the respective bronchi shows once more the difficulty of identifying general rules concerning the interrelationship between vascular and ductal human structures.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001013:Aorta, Thoracic / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D001699:Biometry; D001980:Bronchi / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011651:Pulmonary Artery / Q000033:anatomy & histology