Figure 1.
Application of amniotic membrane grafts on esophageal wounds.
A: esophageal stent with attached non-absorbable suture; B: blue-stained amniotic graft on a nitrocellulose sheet after defrosting; C: amniotic membrane apposition on the external side of a Polyflex stent; D: esophageal stent coated with amniotic membrane graft loaded in the stent catheter; E: endoscopic view of the coated esophageal stent in the esophagus; F: esophageal stent clipped to the esophageal wall using the suture.
Figure 2.
Symptomatic esophageal strictures rates at day 14.
Table 1.
Clinical and endoscopic evaluation on the 14th postoperative day.
Figure 3.
Histological analysis of the swine esophagus after Masson's trichrome staining.
A: swine from the control group, sacrificed at day 14, with major fibrosis measured at 1.79 mm and thick granulation tissue measured at 0.65 mm, original magnification 12.5x; B: swine from the AM 1 group (amniotic membrane graft and early sacrifice scheduled at day 14), without esophageal stricture, with minimal fibrosis and mostly granulation tissue, measured at 0.94 mm, original magnification 10x; C: swine from the AM 2 group sacrificed at day 21, exhibiting major re-epithelialization measured at 8.06 mm, original magnification 15x; D: granulation tissue with features of acute inflammation, as observed in the early phase of esophageal wounds: high cell density, predominance of polynuclear cells (black arrow), fibrino-leucocytary network (blue arrow), and typical palissadic vascular growth (red arrows), original magnification 400x.
Figure 4.
Immunohistochemistry staining with anti-αSMA antibody, original magnification ×200.
Strong signal (brown spots) attesting high myofibroblastic activity (panel A, black arrow) and high vascular density (panel A, white arrow) in control (A); nearly absent signal in MA-treated swine (B).
Table 2.
Histological evaluation of the esophageal wounds.
Figure 5.
Oxidative stress markers measurements in tissue samples of strictured or normal esophagus; performed in control, AM1 and AM 2 groups.