Morphometry of the canine prostate vasculature

Morphometric data of the tissue vasculature are fundamental to the developm ent of models for blood perfused tissue mass and heat transfer. Vascular ca sts of six canine prostates were made and morphometry was performed on 14 t ransverse sections. The region sampled was restricted to the midsection wit hin the parenchyma. General vascular features that were observed include th e radially arranged arteries and veins within the parenchyma, the axially o riented periurethral venous plexae, and the parenchymal arteries ramifying less than the veins. The arterial and venous lumen diameters (mean +/- SD) are 84 +/- 31 (N = 42) and 125 +/- 51 (N = 117), respectively. The lengths for a single vessel generation are 2147 +/- 1196 mu m (N = 14) and 1265 +/- 693 mu m (N = 39) for the arteries and veins, respectively. Intervessel di stances are 4056 +/- 2350 mu m (N = 33) between arteries, 1526 +/- 982 mu m (N = 330) between veins, and 1498 +/- 874 mu m (N = 108) between arteries and veins. A simple vasculature model of evenly distributed vessels imbedde d in tissue for heat transfer analysis was developed. The artery-artery dis tance being about three times that of the vein-vein distance suggested a re te-like configuration of arteries surrounded by veins. An effective distanc e of 1519 mu m between vessels was used. Based upon this vasculature model, the vessel density was calculated to be 5.6 arteries/cm(2) and 44.5 veins/ cm(2) (C) 2000 Academic Press.