3.6 Contact endoscopy and nasal mucosa
Contact endoscopy allowed direct visualization of the superficial cell
layers of the epithelium previously stained with methylene blue. This
was the case in both examinations in patients-group and in healthy
subjects-group.
By using contact endoscopy, we managed to observe the condition of the
microvascular network correlated to any possible damage of the nasal
mucosa. More specifically, on the first evaluation of patients-group, 6
patients had a type A microvascular network pattern, 35 had a type B
pattern (granular or dotted shape) and 12 patients a type C pattern. On
the second exam of patients-group, 15 patients had an A type, 32
exhibited a B type and 6 of them had a C type. In the control group, 38
healthy subjects showed a type B, 10 of them had an A type and the rest
5 had a type C pattern. No septal defect was observed in any subject of
the study groups.
Although it is not quite clear, whether SARS-coronavirus directly
affects the shape of vessels in the nasal mucosa, it is worth mentioning
that the vessels in patients on the second examination and those of the
healthy subjects tended to exhibit similar patterns in absolute numbers.