Most cells need to be within a few cell-widths of a capillary to stay alive, and the cells that make up the outer walls of a blood vessel are no exception. The network of smaller vessels that supply these cells is known as the vasa vasorum. The vasa vasorum penetrate the tunica adventitia, as well as the deeper tunica media of larger vessels such as the aorta. The tunica adventitia (or just adventitia) is the outermost layer of an artery. ... The tunica media (or just media) is the middle layer of an artery. ... The largest artery in the human body, the aorta originates from the left ventricle of the heart and brings oxygenated blood to all parts of the body in the systemic circulation. ...
The vasa vasorum consist of a network of arterioles, capillaries and venules, depending on the vessel. They provide the vessel wall that they penetrate with metabolites which they would otherwise not receive due to the thickness of the layers making up the wall. The vasa vasorum are present more frequently in arteries than in veins. An arteriole is a blood vessel that extends and branches out from an artery and leads to capillaries. ... The word capillary is used to describe any very narrow tube or channel through which a fluid can pass. ... A venule is a small blood vessel that allows deoxygenated blood to return from the capillary beds to the larger blood vessels called veins. ...
Abundant vasavasorum was observed around the musculature of superficial collecting lymphatics of human thigh.
Within intervalvular portions of the lymphatic collectors where the muscle coat was thicker and more compact, the vasavasorum penetrated between smooth muscle cells and was in contact with the endothelium.
The vasavasorum deep in the muscular layer and in the subendothelial space probably sustain adequate nutrition and oxygenation to the collecting lymphatic.
In the CCA groups, no vasavasorum were seen, while in the AA and CIA respectively 27 ± 2 and 13 ± 2 vasavasorum per section at 0 weeks were seen in the tunica adventitia.
Furthermore, the absence of vasavasorum in the CCA in the tunica adventitia in contrast to the AA and CIA is strikingly in this study.
Indeed, Pels described that the number of vasavasorum in the tunica adventitia changed after balloon injury in pigs, which may be a component of arterial remodelling after angioplasty [23].
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