Blood capillary enlargement during the development of thyroid hyperplasia in the rat.

To study blood capillary growth in the hyperplastic thyroid gland, rats were fed 0.25% thiouracil in a low iodine diet for time intervals up to 100 days. Thyroids were fixed by vascular perfusion and embeded in Epon. Whole lobes were sectioned from pole to pole and slides were prepared of sections every 0.3 mm. Capillaries were clearly enlarged by 3 days and they enlarged progressively thereafter. By 3 days, the cells of many neighboring capillaries came into close apposition and from this time on, there was evidence of fusion of capillary walls in the form of partial septa in the capillary lumens. Fusion continued until 20 days, when follicles were almost completely surrounded by a continuous endothelial sheet and unfused capillary walls were separated by connective tissue. The vascular pattern around peripheral follicles changed in a way similar to interior follicles, except that in places, capillaries were gradually excluded from the space between epithelium and thyroid capsule. Vascular enlargement was restricted to the thyroid blood vessels. There was no obvious enlargement of the blood capillaries of the parathyroid despite its close proximity to the thyroid.