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The architecture of internal blood vessels in human fetal vertebral bodies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 1997

A. SKAWINA
Affiliation:
Department of Anatomy, Jagiellonian University School of Medicine, Craców, Poland
J. A. LITWIN
Affiliation:
Department of Histology, Jagiellonian University School of Medicine, Craców, Poland
J. GORCZYCA
Affiliation:
Department of Anatomy, Jagiellonian University School of Medicine, Craców, Poland
A. J. MIODOŃSKI
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Scanning Electron Microscopy, Jagiellonian University School of Medicine, Craców, Poland
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Abstract

The internal vascular system of vertebral bodies was investigated in 17–24 wk human fetuses by acrylic dye injection and by corrosion casting/scanning electron microscopy. The regions of intervertebral spaces did not contain blood vessels. The radial metaphyseal vessels were at the stage of centripetal ingrowth into the vertebral body cartilage and their terminal, blindly ending segments had a form of cuff-like capillary plexuses. The anterolateral equatorial arteries communicating with the vessels of the ossification centre were only rarely found. The centre was usually supplied by 2 posterior (nutrient) arteries which branched into an arcade-like array of arterioles equipped with occasional sphincters and giving origin to a dense network of peripherally located capillaries. Numerous blind capillary buds formed the advancing border of the ossification centre. The veins usually accompanied the arteries. In the ossification centre the venous compartment consisted of sinuses drained by larger posterior veins. In the 17 wk fetus, an axial avascular area was observed in the place of notochord localisation, indicating the formation of a ring-shaped ossification centre around the notochord remnants at earlier stages of fetal development.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1997

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