[Vascular permeability and intravascular erythrocyte aggregation in young people after smoking cessation]

To study the parameters of microcirculation and permeability of the microvessels in young people who have ceased smoking.

The study enrolled 35 healthy young adults (male to female ratio, 20:15; mean age, 21.71±0.46 years) who had stopped smoking 1 month to 10 years (mean 2.63±0.43 years) ago. The compared group consisted of 16 smokers (male to female ratio, 6:10; mean age, 21.62±0.72 years) and 29 non-smokers (male to female ratio, 8:21; mean age, 21.62±0.48 years). Computer-assisted video biomicroscopy of the bulbar conjunctiva was performed. When the results were assessed, attention was drawn to a change in the degree and extent of intravascular erythrocyte aggregation (IVEA) and vessel wall permeability.

As compared to the smokers, those who had quit smoking showed a decrease in the degree of IVEA in the arterioles (p1=0. 044, van der Waerden test), its prevalence in the central, transitional, and perilimbar regions (p1<0.0001), and a decline in the number of conjunctival areas that exhibited IVEA (2.2 and 3.437; p1=0.0002). Those who had given up smoking versus the smokers were found to have more rarely local foci of conjunctival edema (formation of veils; p1=0.0217).

In the young people who have ceased smoking versus the smokers, IVEA decreases and miscovascular permeability restores.