[Morphometric findings of a peculiarity in the aging of the lymphatic system]

The size of sections of lymph follicles in the pharyngeal tonsils of sixty-four children and juveniles between two and twenty-one years of age was determined histomorphometrically. The measurements were followed by linear regression and correlation analyses and determinations of mean differences by Student's t-test. It was possible to show that lymph follicles start decreasing in size already from the third year of life onward. Moreover, lymph follicle size decreases with the frequency of infections, and there is a positive correlation between the histomorphometrically determinable follicle size and the macroscopic size of the organ.