Lung structure as revealed by microdissection. Positional morphology of human lung.

A technique of lung structure analysis is presented that allows visualization of the airway in its conceptual form. The lung is dissected such that the bronchial tree appears as a branching, continuous surface whose fine structure varies as a function of position along the airway. In these preparations, single loci of interest can be studied sequentially with any optical or electron microscope. This provides precise correlation of surface morphology and intracellular structure. Microstructural information can be indexed by either branch order or linear distance along the air path. Morphometry can be performed on surface features of the airway imaged with the scanning electron microscope using this indexing system. The anatomy of a human airway is presented.