The ultrastructure and growth of human nails

✍ Scribed by Rodney P. R. Dawber

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1980
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 783 KB
• Volume: 269
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0340-3696
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00406540

✦ Synopsis

Clinicians used to observing the slow rate of clearance of diseased or damaged nail are apt to see the nail apparatus as a rather inert structure. Paticularly during the last 15years, ultrastructural and physiological research has shown that under a variety of circumstances the nail matric and its product, the nail plate, are in fact the centre of marked biological activity.

Dystrophies specific to nail tissue are rarely diagnosed accurately, largely because dermatologists are loathe to resolve differential diagnostic conflicts by resorting to histology; scarring and deformity due to biopsy are the usual reasons for not undertaking microscopic studies. The longitudinal biopsy technique of Zaias [1] does not lead to significant scarring; if done correctly only a fine inconspicuous line in evident after complete healing (Fig. I a -c ) . In general,