Remodeling and Growth
Soft tissues have the potential to grow and remodel reacting to chemical and mechanical long term changes. The rate the fibroblasts produce tropocollagen is proportional to these stimuli. Diseases, injuries and changes in the level of mechanical load may induce remodeling. An example of this phenomenon is the thickening of farmer's hands. The remodeling of connective tissues is very know in bones by the Wolff's law (bone remodeling). Mechanobiology is the science that study the relation between stress and growth at cellular level.
Growth and remodeling have a major role in the etiology of some common soft tissue diseases, like arterial stenosis and aneurisms and any soft tissue fibrosis. Other instance of tissue remodeling, is the thickening of the cardiac muscle in response to the growth of blood pressure detected by the arterial wall.
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