Morphogenesis and pathogenesis of chronic lung diseases. IX. Development of reticulinic fibrillogenesis during the evolution of an associated experimental silicosis and tuberculosis.

Well developed silicotic nodules of rabbit lungs were infected with tuberculosis and treated with tuberculostatics. The spatial evolution of lesions, as well as the density of intralesional and perilesional reticulinic fibrils were quantitatively analysed, measured by planimetric and target methods, and statistically analysed. Under tuberculostatics, the size of lesions, expressed in the dynamics of the SL/ST % ratio, rapidly diminished to half after three months. In the some period, the density of reticulinic fibrils expressed by the PA of the target method, increased, with significant differences between treated silicotuberculotic lesions and tuberculotic ones. The correlation analysis between these two divergent changes showed the interfering with other factors.