Stereological Estimation of Epidermal Volumes and Dermo-Epidermal Surface Area in Normal Skin

Abstract

Quantitative morphological studies of the healthy epidermis are essential in providing a range of parameter estimates that can be considered within the range of normality. Stereology is a set of statistical tools that provides potentially unbiased and precise estimates of 3-dimensional tissue characteristics from 2-dimensional sections. We set out to establish reference values for the volume of the viable epidermis contained within a four-millimetre punch biopsy (V_epi), the volume of the stratum corneum (V_SC) and the surface area of the dermo-epidermal junction(A_DEJ) in 4 predetermined body regions by use of stereology. Four-millimetre punch biopsies were taken from 20 freshly diseased corpses, fixed in formalin and embedded in paraffin. V_epi, V_SC and A_DEJ were established stereologically for all 4 body locations followed by pairwise comparison of means after Bonferroni correction. V_epi was significantly larger in the sole compared to all other body locations (p < 0.01). Furthermore, linear regression analysis showed a strong linear relationship between V_epi and V_SC in the sole (r = 0.70). Our results suggest that the viable layers of the epidermis might also serve a mechanical function, either directly or by providing the stratum corneum with keratinocytes to support the hyperkeratosis in the weight-bearing parts of the skin.

Aplicabilidade da estereologia e microscopia de força atômica à pesquisa dermatológica veterinária (revisão de literatura)

“…Os estudos utilizando o delineamento estereológico concentram-se particularmente nas áreas de desenvolvimento embrionário (ZHANG, 2018), evolução (BOGGILD, 2018), patologia (ASHKANI-ESFAHANI et al, 2019) e neurociências (YURT,2018). Em dermatologia veterinária, é escassa sua empregabilidade, apesar do potencial para utilização (KAMP et al, 2009;MARTINS et al, 2010;KAMP et al, 2011).…”

“…De uma forma geral, as camadas e estratos da pele têm sido objeto de muitos estudos morfológicos e ultraestruturais, tanto pela variabilidade entre as espécies, quanto às funções imunológica, farmacodinâmica e farmacocinética cutânea (HUSSAIN, 2019;CHANG, 2017;AGARWAL, 2019;LOGGER, 2019). Em medicina veterinária, dado o elevado número de espécies estudadas, tais características tornam-se ainda mais relevantes, haja visto que as variações de celularidade, densidade celular, volume celular e tecidual, influenciam na fisiologia cutânea e, consequentemente, na rotina clínica para a espécie (KAMP et al, 2011).…”

Reflectance Confocal Microscopy for the Evaluation of Solitary Red Nodules

“…Dermoscopy and RCM are considered complementary tools in the management of skin tumors, and RCM has been demonstrated to be particularly useful in the diagnosis of lesions for which dermoscopy can be challenging, as is the case with nonpigmented skin tumors [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. However, since RCM has a limit in the visualization in depth (depth penetration is up to 300 µm under the skin surface), currently the evaluation of nodular lesions is not considered an indication for RCM [7,15]. Only a few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of RCM in the assessment of pigmented nodular lesions [16,17,18,19].…”

Phase-Contrast Microtomography with Synchrotron Radiation Technology: A New Noninvasive Technique to Analyze the Three-Dimensional Structure of Dermal Tissues

“…Recent studies have further demonstrated the ability of collagen to assemble into a network, which determines the strength and elasticity of healthy skin, can act as a template that defines cell behavior and tissue functions, directs the wound healing process and restores normal structure and function to skin previously damaged by injury or disease [2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Although the present morphology studies that mostly built up on the 2-dimensional scale have achieved many advances concerning dermal tissues and the difference between normal tissue and scar tissue [9], the structural characteristic of the dermal tissue is still unknown, which impedes the progress of quantitative morphology studies [10]. Furthermore, in skin tissue engineering research, the ideal structure of the scaffold for cell behavior still needs to be clarified.…”