Morphometric Study of Connective Tissue in the Human Pituitary during Aging Process

The aim of the research was to quantify the connective tissue and blood vessels in the aging human pituitary, using the morphometric methods. The material contained 29 pituitary tissues from cadavers of both sexes (14 females and 15 males), aged 33-95 years. The pituitary tissue was processed by standard histological procedure and stained by Mallory trichrome method. Histological samples were analyzed using a light microscope with magnification of 400x. Morphometric analysis was performed on digital pictures with the resolution of 1.3 megapixels, at 40 pituitary visual fields of each case examined. Fovea Pro 4 system was used for the analysis. Above the digital images of each field of view, there was inserted a simple network test system. Using this programme, there were determined bulk densities of connective tissue and blood vessels in the examined cases. The results were statistically analyzed using the package NCSS-PASS 2007. Correlation analysis showed that the bulk density of connective tissue statistically significantly increased during aging. The average bulk density of blood vessels in the pituitary manifested statistically significant decrease during the aging process. These results were confirmed by the linear regression analysis. The average bulk density of the connective tissue, as well as the average bulk density of blood vessels in the pituitary cases, did not differ significantly among males and females. The process of aging is followed by the proliferation of the connective tissue and fibrosis of the pituitary, which is accompanied by the reduction of its vascular network.