Morphometric Analysis Of Adrenal Gland In Health Adult Human

Objective: To measure adrenal medulla/cortex ratio by quantitative analysis of adrenal medulla and cortex from corpse of sudden death health adult and provide the evidence for the clinic pathological diagnosis of adrenal medullary hyperplasia.Methods: Fifteen adrenals were collected from sudden death corpses and then were fixed in 10% formalin. After that, the samples were evenly cut into 18 blocks perpendicular to the long axis. All the blocks were embedded in paraffin in the same direction, and then slices were cut out of the blocks and were stained with haematoxylin and eosin (H&E). All the slices were photographed with image analyzer software. At last, the area of medulla and cortex of the adrenal gland in each slice was obtained with Photoshop software, and the medulla/cortex ratio was computed.Results: The normal medulla/cortex ratio of the human adrenal gland is 0.122±0.020. From the head to the tail of the gland, the ratio increases at first and decreases suddenly at the point of about 6% of the gland and decreases slowly at the point of about 70%.Conclusion: The adrenal gland medulla/cortex ratio could be measured by the combination of modern computer technique and histology. It can establish a basis for the clinic pathological diagnosis of adrenal medullary hyperplasia.