title: Morphologic characteristics of initial lymphatics of the healthy and diseased human gingiva.
abstract: Investigation was performed on healthy and inflamed human gingivae. In the healthy mucosa lymphatic vessels generally appeared as flattened channels with a reduced lumen. Only in very inflamed tissue were some more evident vessels with a distended wall detectable. Ultrastructurally, most of the vessels had the characteristics of capillaries and they were delimited by a thin and irregular endothelial wall with large intercellular spaces. These observations indicate that in the gingival tissues, which are continuously exposed to inflammatory agents and need a really efficient draining system, the pathway of interstitial exudation and cell migration may include both the lymphatic vessel system and the intercellular spaces of the permeable junctional epithelium.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Istologia ed Embriologia Generale, Università di Pavia, Italy. carla.marchetti@unipv.it
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Marchetti
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Poggi
authors.forename: A I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Cornaglia
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Farina
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rizzo
mesh_terms: D005881:Gingiva / Q000166:cytology*; D005891:Gingivitis / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008208:Lymphatic System / Q000166:cytology* / Q000473:pathology*; D009092:Mucous Membrane / Q000166:cytology / Q000473:pathology