Ultrastructural study of the neovagina following the utilization of human amniotic membrane for treatment of congenital absence of the vagina

We present an ultrastructural study of the utilization of human amniotic membrane in the treatment of congenital absence of the vagina in 10 patients. All patients were surgically treated with application of an amniotic membrane graft using the modified McIndoe and Bannister technique. Sixty days after surgery, samples of the vaginal neo-epithelium were collected for transmission electron microscopy analysis. The ultrastructural findings consisted of a lining of mature squamous epithelium indicating the occurrence of metaplasia of the amniotic epithelium into the vaginal epithelium. The cells were arranged in layers as in the normal vaginal epithelium, i.e., superficial, intermediate and deep layers. There were desmosomes and cytoplasmic intermediate cytokeratin filaments, as well as some remnant features of the previous amniotic epithelium. These findings suggest that human amniotic membrane is able to complete metaplasia into squamous cells but the mechanism of this cellular transformation is unknown

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Format: Digital revista
Language:English
Published: Associação Brasileira de Divulgação Científica 1997
Online Access:http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0100-879X1997000700007
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!