The Small Pulmonary Vessels in Mitral Stenosis

The association of pulmonary arteriosclerosis with mitral stenosis has long been recognized: Posselt (1909) reviewing all the cases of pulmonary arteriosclerosis published in the 19th century found that mitral stenosis was present in 40 per cent of them. In early accounts, however, attention was directed only to atheroma of the main pulmonary arterial branches, and later descriptions of changes in the small intrapulmonary vessels are difficult to interpret because of differences in terminology. Brenner (1935) gave an excellent account of the morphology of the pulmonary vasculature and his definitions have been adhered to in this paper.