Characteristics of Interstitial Fibrosis and Inflammatory Cell Infiltration in Right Ventricles of Systemic Sclerosis-Associated Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
Figure 5
Representative samples of Elastica von Gieson stained myocardial sections of the RV of SScPAH patients, used for studying fibrosis in detail. (a) Some RV’s of SScPAH patients revealed a pattern patchy replacement fibrosis, mostly localized subendocardially. This was also seen in some hearts of IPAH patients, but not observed in control. (b) In few cases, a pattern of strands of collagenous fibrous tissue surrounding microvasculature was observed, radiating from the epicardial coronary arteries to the subendocardial myocardium. (c) In some cases small infarcts in both SSc and IPAH hearts were observed. (d) An increase in perivascular fibrosis in some SScPAH hearts and in 1 IPAH heart was observed. All these observations were not made in control hearts.
