CORRELATION OF CERTAIN BRONCHOGRAPHIC ABNORMALITIES SEEN IN CHRONIC BRONCHITIS WITH THE PATHOLOGICAL CHANGES BY

In their description of the changes seen in the bronchograms of patients with chronic bronchitis, Simon and Galbraith (1953) described the absence of peripheral filling as the most frequent change in the lung periphery and also the presence of " pools, " the name applied to dense blobs of con-trast medium, 3-5 mm. in diameter, which arise from the peripheral part of the bronchial tree. The present investigation is concerned with the significance of the lack of filling and the nature of the "pools " in patients with chronic bronchitis. The opportunity has also been taken to investigate another abnormal shadow with a spiked outline which is sometimes seen in patients with chronic bronchitis and emphysema. METHOD AND MATERIAL The method of injection of the bronchial tree with radio-opaque material and the selection of relevant blocks of tissue for microscopic examination have been described in the previous paper. Because of the small size of the structures in the secondary lobules serial sections are necessary to correlate the bronchographic and microscopic appearances. In this study, however, the distance between sections varied from 100 /k to 1 mm., since the histological changes had previously been examined in greater detail by serial section (Reid, 1954). Verhoeff-van Gieson and haematoxylin-eosin stains were used routinely, to-gether with special stains to demonstrate mucus (Hotchkiss-McManus reaction) and iron (Prussian blue method) in certain cases. Eleven lung specimens from patients with chronic bronchitis were investigated. Two were obtained at necropsy and nine from operation on patients with both chronic bronchitis and carci-noma of the lung