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.