[Morphological characteristics of cell populations in bronchial biopsy from mining-chemical factory workers]

A clinicomorphological examination of bronchial and transbronchial biopsies from the workers of a mining and chemical enterprise in Zheleznogorsk has demonstrated that long-term exposure to low-dose radionuclide radiation induces essential inflammatory and scleroticatrophic changes in the bronchopulmonary tissue. All the cell populations of the bronchial epithelium and stroma as well as a respiratory part of the lungs are involved into the pathological process. Squamous metaplasia of the bronchial epithelium is observed in 50% cases, in half of them various dysplastic processes occur. The complex of the above morphological alterations evidences for an oncological trend in pathological processes in the lungs of workers exposed to radionuclides.