Introduction:

As the skin occupies a frontier position with the outside world and it is an organ sensitive to chronic environmental aggressions, detailed knowledge of the changes that occur in it over the years is necessary to adequately manage the related processes with its aging.

Objective:

To characterize the healthy papillary dermis, in patients of different ages and sex, taking into account morphometric indicators.

Methods:

A study of a series of cases was carried out, it consisted of 12 patients with basal cell carcinoma, a diagnosis confirmed by the Pathological Anatomy service of the Vladimir Ilich Lenin Provincial Hospital, the patients underwent excisional biopsy of the lesion and wide margins of healthy skin around it. Cell area density and amorphous extracellular matrix of the healthy papillary dermis were the morphometric indicators studied.

Results:

In the qualitative study of the papillary dermis, fibroblast nuclei were observed less frequently than in young skin patterns, and in general, the extracellular matrix showed a higher density. In the morphometry, it was specified that in the dermis studied there is a decrease in cellularity and amorphous substance.

Conclusions:

Cell area density tends to decrease with age and was significantly different between the sexes, being higher in females. The areal density of amorphous substance decreases; in the male sex over the years, while in the female sex, it did not show significant differences.

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