Morphometric analysis of the growth of the normal fetal guinea pig lung.

The structural development of the fetal guinea pig lung is described and quantified morphometrically in this report. At 35 days gestation the lung is in the pseudoglandular phase of growth, by 40 days it is in the canalicular phase, and at 50 days the saccular growth phase has begun. At term (67 days), the fetal guinea pig lung appears mature. From the beginning of the canalicular to the end of the saccular phases, the correlation coefficient between lung volume and gestational age is +.98, between internal surface area and gestational age is +.94 and between total number of saccules and gestational age is +.97. Internal surface area (ISA) correlates closely with lung volume (r = +.99) and the correlation coefficient between total number of saccules and lung volume is +.98. At term, lung volume is 4.22 ml. ISA is 0.5 M2, and total number of saccules is 253 million. Parenchymal growth is achieved by increases in both number and size of airspaces in the canalicular phase, primarily by increases in number during the early saccular phase and largely by increases in airspace size near term. The total length of parenchymal elastic tissue increases from 223 M at 45 days gestation to 5,253 M at term. Elastic tissue fibers first appear in the parenchyma of the fetal guinea pig lung during the canalicular phase, when the rate of saccule formation is high. The quantitative increase in elastic tissue correlates closely with the increase in the total number of saccules from day 45 to day 60 of gestation (r = +.99). The rate of elastic tissue growth increases sharply in the late saccular phase, coinciding with the period of greatest saccular expansion. These data suggest an interdependent relationship between saccular growth, i.e., proliferation and expansion, and the development of lung parenchymal elastic tissue.