Ultrastructural and morphometrical evaluations on normal human dermal connective tissue - The influence of age, sex and body region

In order to give detailed structural and quantitative evaluations for some of the most important dermal constituents such as collagen, elastic fibres and mesenchymal cells, and for the nonstructured extracellular matrix, we performed ultrastructural investigations on dermal biopsies from 50 healthy caucasian subjects aged from 6 fetal months to 83 years. Striking changes were observed, mainly in the perinatal period, for collagen, elastin and mesenchymal cells and, after 50 years of age, for collagen and elastin. Only slight or negligible differences were noted between males and females and in skin specimens taken from different parts of the body but similarly exposed to environmental factors (i.e. UV radiation). Modifications of the non-structured extracellular matrix appeared to be the consequence of changes affecting the other components. The results, therefore, emphasize the importance of the ageing factor in connective tissue metabolism and give further information on both qualitative and quantitative characteristics of normal human dermis.