Atlas of the Mammalian Ovary

Katharina Spanel-Borowski studied human medicine at Bonn from 1963 to 1969. She subsequently specialized in Pathology and Anatomy at Ulm, Lübeck, and Basel, in Germany and Switzerland, before serving as head of the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Leipzig from 1997 to 2009. She has published on the functional morphology of the ovary since 1980 and has promoted the concept of innate immunity control in the ovary on the basis of retrospective analysis performed during early retirement.

• Introduction.- Follicle stages and follicular atresia without and with irradiation.- Follicular atresia as proliferative and inflammatory event.- Cortex and cellular stromolysis.- The ovulatory period as acute inflammatory response to oxidative stress and follicle cell harvest.- Corpus luteum cycle with focus on capillary sprouting and regression, eosinophils and KIT-positive cells.- Intraovarian oocyte release (IOR) with severe tissue damage.- Vascular stromolysis and vascular luteolysis for bulk tissue removal.- Polycystic and postmenopausal ovaries and negligible mast cells.- Cytokeratin-positive cells as dendritic-like cells and potential albumin-coexpression in follicles and corpus luteum.- Aspects of immunological control, novel concepts, challenges and clinical perspectives.