Abstract: 　Objective To study the change of the content of collagen typeⅠand collagen type Ⅲ (C-Ⅰ, C-Ⅲ) in liver and spleen of patients with advanced schistosomiasis japonica. Methods Sirius red staining was used to examine pathologically the liver and spleen biopsy materials from 55 patients at the advanced stage of schistosomiasis and 5 healthy persons as control. The stained slides were observed under polarizing microscope and results were interpreted by computer imaging analysis system. (Results) The content of C-Ⅰand C-Ⅲ in liver tissue and hepatic sinusoids increased significantly in the patients than that of the control (P<0.01), the ratio of C-Ⅰ/C-Ⅲ decreased considerably (P<0.01). With the progress of fibrosis in the liver, the content of C-Ⅰand C-Ⅲ in hepatic sinusoids decreased, and the ratio of C-Ⅰ/C-Ⅲ increased. The content of C-Ⅰand C-Ⅲ in spleen tissue also increased significantly in schistosomiasis patients than that of the control (P<0.01), the ratio of C-Ⅰ/C-Ⅲ decreased (P<0.01). The C-Ⅰand C-Ⅲ content increased with the progress of spleen fibrosis while the ratio of C-Ⅰ/C-Ⅲ decreased. Conclusion The result shows that the content of C-Ⅰand C-Ⅲ increased in liver and spleen of the patients with advanced schistosomiasis japonica, the increase of C-Ⅲ was more significant than that of C-Ⅰ.

Key words: schistosomiasis japonica, liver, spleen, collagen type I, collagen type Ⅲ