Jorge H. M. Manaia; Waldemar S. Costa; Francisco J. B. Sampaio; Marcelo A. Figueiredo; Gilberto P. Cardoso & Marcio A. Babinski

Summary

The goal of this investigation was to analyze and quantify changes of the reticular fibers in the prostatic urethra of patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and compare with a control group. Prostatic urethra tissue samples were obtained from ten patients (age range 65 to 79 years, mean 66) with clinical symptoms of bladder outlet obstruction who had undergone open prostatectomy. The ten control group samples (urethral tissue samples from the transitional zone) were collected from prostates obtained during autopsy of accidental death adults of less than 25 years. The Vv of the reticular fibers was determined with stereologic methods from 25 random fields per sample using the point-count method with a M-42 grid test system. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Mann-Whitney U tests. The Vv (mean±SD) in the control and BPH groups respectively were: 23.4± 1.8 and 30.3 ± 1.2 (0.001). BPH cause significant increase of reticular fibers in prostatic urethra.

KEY WORDS: Prostatic urethra; Reticular fibers; Stereology.

How to cite this article