[Bronchofibroscopic and bronchographic aspects of the senile bronchus]

A comparison is made between the bronchofibroscopic and bronchographic pictures observed in aged volunteers with healthy lungs and bronchi. The main finding was of simple atrophy of varying type and degree (more or less marked, diffuse or local), mainly affecting the large bronchi. Age and the extent and magnitude of the alterations were not related: marked atrophy was noted in presenile and slight atrophy in greatly aged subjects. Both types of atrophy may be treated as physiological, since they are presumably connected with differences in the incidence of various factors (diasthetic, constitutional, dysmetabolic, hormonal) and variously numerous microtrauma. The same picture was given by both types of examination, despite the wide differences between their methods.