What is it about?
Pulmonary lymphatics are a part of the vascular system which is not very well studied. This has happened because lymphatic vessels are very delicate and older techniques were not good enough to detect them. Thus, when we describe the way the lungs work and the way that diseases affect them, we barely think about the lymphatic system. However, recent advances and new techniques allow us to see the lymphatic vessels of the lung in much more detail than ever before. We review these new techniques in a brief manner.
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Why is it important?
These newer techniques that we review are becoming more and more common. We believe that in the coming years, the role of lymphatics in the healthy and diseased lung will be described in better detail, allowing us to have a more complete understanding of the way the lungs work. This will open the road to new treatments and diagnostic methods.
Perspectives
Lymphatic vessels have been overlooked for too long. Our understanding of many pathologies is incomplete because we do not include the role of lymphatics in our current theories. By disseminating the different ways in which lung lymphatics can be studied, we hope more researchers include the study of lymphatics in their research.
Victor Maldonado-Zimbron
University of Auckland
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Methods for studying pulmonary lymphatics, European Respiratory Journal, April 2021, European Respiratory Society (ERS),
DOI: 10.1183/13993003.04106-2020.
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