Patterns of lymphatic drainage to individual thoracic and cervical lymph nodes in the rat.

Colloidal carbon was used as tracer material to determine the lymphatic drainage to the cervical and thoracic lymph nodes from various regions of the respiratory tract in the F344 rat. While the lung region may be drained mainly to the posterior mediastinal lymph nodes, the tracheal wall drains primarily to the internal jugular and posterior cervical nodes.