Neuron Research
Compare and Contrast (Histology and histopathology)
Please raise your hands those who are just like me who for many pathology light years were confused about how to differentiate a blood vessel from a lymph vessel histologically?
I know, there must be quite a few…. It is important to know these entities separately as a histopathologist because in physiology we tend to use these terms interchangeably, but when comes to pathology carcinomas invade the lymphatics and sarcomas invade the blood vessels….
So, my point of differentiation between the two is blood vessel is thick walled with continuous lumen and engorged with R.B.C’s and lymphatic vessels are thin walled with fenestrations or gap’s with pink coloured lymph…
Also, haemangiomas manifest differently and lymphangiomas manifest differently….
Haemangiomas appear as regular and predictable small “strawberry” like macules over the skin or mucous membranes or sometimes tumour like lesions having great propensity to bleed and histologically also they are regular lesions with normal epithelium with proliferation of capillaries, endothelial cells and maximum the haemorrhage…
Lymphangiomas though are highly dramatic… here, the normal protector vessels which carry the immune cells and lymph “miscommunicate” due to some genetic miscoding to which we can refer as an unseen “spell” of a witch…
So due to these wrong genetic signalling there is malformation of lymph networks thereby, lymph vesicles get greatly dilated and start depositing lymph in the dermis/submucosa itself.
Hence the overlying epithelium of lymphangiomas are dramatically proliferated and shows hyperkeratosis and acanthosis (resembling a crown) … The connective tissue reveals those gorgeous lymphatics dressed with their pink frock of lymph and frill and beads of well-arranged delicate lining of endothelial cells!! This all reminds me of the Elsa’s costume in the movie Frozen!
The lymphangioma swellings are also many times huge and are not as common as haemangiomas but are rare and are almost congenital and 90% occur in children less than 2 years. Neck swellings are huge masses known as cystic hygromas…
Lymphangiomas unlike many haemangiomas are not self-limiting and most of the cases require surgical treatment. Lymphangiomas cause more complications such as pain, discomfort and secondary infections and needs good care especially because they occur in children.
Although both these twin tumours can be treated by the use of sclerosing agents too…
All in all, lymphangiomas character is all similar to our favourite Disney character of “Queen Elsa” who actually wants to protect her kingdom (so is the role of lymphatics in our body is actually producing the defence force/ defence cells to fight against an array of infections) but due to the so called “spell or wrong mutations” there is emergence developmental malformations and tumours or lymphangiomas just like Elsa’s spell of freezing her entire kingdom…