Spectrophotometrical alterations in the support tissue of large bronchi in humans

We investigated spcctrophotometrically hyaline cartilage of large bronchi in 53 humans. The gradual increase of optical density (OD) both in cytoplasm of chondrocytes (CH) and extracellular matrix (EM) from the proliferative zone to the zone of hypertrophied CH was revealed in the first type of nonchanged cartilage. The second type of non-changed and partly degenerative cartilage exhibited the same distribution of OD along all zones through insignificant changes of OD in the EM. The third type of degenerative and asbestotic cartilage showed cither significant increase or decrease of OD in all zones. We suggest, that the different types of distribution of the OD corresponds to the degeneration of cartilage, but does not depend on age and duration of disease.