[Light microscopic studies of the cartilage in funnel chest. A new view of the pathogenesis].

Abstract

In patients with a funnel chest, light-microscopic studies of their rib cartilage showed vessels in all slices of the cartilage. In all analysed stages of life there is a constant number of vessels per unit area; even in not deformed parts of the cartilage. Furthermore, the number of the chondrocytes strongly increases within the single chondrons with rising age in an extraordinary way.