In medicine, Aschoff bodies are nodules found in the hearts of individuals with rheumatic fever. They result from inflammation in the heart muscle and are characteristic of rheumatic heart disease. These nodules were discovered independently by Ludwig Aschoff and Paul Rudolf Geipel, and for this reason they are occasionally called Aschoff-Geipel bodies.
Microscopically, Aschoff bodies are areas of inflammation of the connective tissue of the heart, or focal interstitial inflammation. Fully developed Aschoff bodies are granulomatous structures consisting of fibrinoid change, lymphocytic infiltration, occasional plasma cells, and characteristically abnormal macrophages surrounding necrotic centres. Some of these macrophages may fuse to form multinucleated giant cells. Others may become Anitschkow cells or "caterpillar cells", so named because of the appearance of their chromatin.
The Aschoff bodies were discovered independently by the German pathologist Ludwig Aschoff 1904[1][2] and one year later by Paul Rudolf Geipel.[3]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||