Summary
The lower gengival and vestibular oral mucosa was photographed and analyzed to determine the complexity of the vascular network. Patients with hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer syndrome (HNPCC), newborns with true umbilical cord knots, patients with a history of infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS), patients with mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD) and ageand sex-matched controls were enrolled in the study. The fractal dimensions for two regions of different box lengths ( < 740 µm and < 140 µm), the fractal dimension of the minimum path (Dmin) and the relative Lempel-Ziv complexity were calculated. The findings of this study indicate the presence of an increased vascular network complexity of the patients’ oral mucosa, giving us previously unrecognized phenotypical markers for these diseases. The increased oral vascular complexity observed may be linked to a a systemic abnormality of the extracellular matrix.
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© 2005 Birkhäuser Verlag Basel
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Bianciardi, G., De Felice, C., Cattaneo, R., Parrini, S., Monaco, A., Latini, G. (2005). Fractal Analysis of Vascular Network Pattern in Human Diseases. In: Losa, G.A., Merlini, D., Nonnenmacher, T.F., Weibel, E.R. (eds) Fractals in Biology and Medicine. Mathematics and Biosciences in Interaction. Birkhäuser Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-7643-7412-8_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-7643-7412-8_17
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser Basel
Print ISBN: 978-3-7643-7172-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-7643-7412-9
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