[Pathomorphologic characteristics and classification of bronchitis in miners working on watered faces in coal mines]

The material obtained from the lungs of 83 miners who worked in coal faces for 2-27 years, has been studied. On the basis of pathomorphological data acute and chronic bronchitis were subdivided into three forms each. Acute bronchitis: catarrhal-desquamative, productive-infiltrative, destructive-necrotic; chronic ones: productive-destructive, hypertrophic, atrophic. Each form of acute and chronic bronchitis has its own morphological varieties. The signs of professional bronchitis are not characteristic of acute bronchitis; coal just decreases the resistance of the bronchial mucous membrane. Chronic bronchitis is characterized by a number of distinctive morphological features: hyalinosis of the basal membrane, restructuring of the vascular network of the bronchial tree, and rarely squamous-cell metaplasia of the bronchial epithelium.