Fig. 5: Small intestinal biopsies from children with refractory stunting.
From: Adaptation of the small intestine to microbial enteropathogens in Zambian children with stunting
a, Biopsy with tall villi, little inflammation and intact epithelium, but some early villus fusion apparent. b, Moderate enteropathy with villus blunting and epithelial damage (solid arrows) and a focus of chronic inflammation (marked by the asterisk). c, Severe enteropathy with subtotal villus blunting and areas of epithelial loss (solid arrows) and a focus of chronic inflammation (marked by the asterisk). d, Close-up of epithelial damage showing a microerosion characterized by the progressive loss of enterocyte height at the edges, which are shown by the hollow arrows. e, Morphometric analysis showing the measurements of villus height (black lines), crypt depth (yellow lines), villus surface area (white perimeter) and length of muscularis mucosae (green line), which is the denominator for calculating the epithelial surface area. a–d, Scale bars, 100 μm.
