Background
The human vaginal wall has many important functions, still has no functional anatomic characterisation been performed. There is little knowledge about structural changes during the life cycle of the woman, as well as about changes that gives urinary incontinence and prolapse.
The interest for image analysis applications is based on their objectivity, reproducibility and possibilities for detection.

Aim of the study
The aim is to give a thorough description of the anatomy and histology of the vaginal wall and its components: epithelial thickness and structure, blood vessels, innervation and connective tissue with its accompanying fibres and macro molecules (collagen and elastin) and the connective tissue cells.
The investigations are performed with morphometry after histochemical staining. An increased knowledge about the vaginal wall morphology and pathophysiology will give better prerequisites for earlier diagnostics of conditions such as urinary incontinence and prolapse.

Materials and methods
Morphometry including image analysis and stereology are central techniques in the studies.
Histochemistry, different histopathological staining techniques reveals selectively specific structures in the tissue, which is essential for morphometric analysis.

The parts of the study
The study consists of development and validation of morphometrical methods for measurement of specific structures in the vaginal wall and vestibulum (part 1, 2 and 3) and clinical applications of these methods (part 4 and 5). Part 6 is a characterisation of the normal vestibular mucosa with morphometrical methods.

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