Soft tissue definition

[Lothric]

Hey,

What's the difference between stromal tissue (stroma) and soft tissue? Both seem to be supportive. They could be synonyms, maybe?

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[Phloston]

Hey,

What's the difference between stromal tissue (stroma) and soft tissue? Both seem to be supportive. They could be synonyms, maybe?

According to Wiki:

"soft tissue includes the tissues that connect, support, or surround other structures and organs of the body, not being hard tissue such as bone. Soft tissue includes tendons, ligaments, fascia, skin, fibrous tissues, fat, and synovial membranes (which are connective tissue), and muscles, nerves and blood vessels (which are not connective tissue).[1]

It is sometimes defined by what it is not. Soft tissue has been defined as "nonepithelial, extraskeletal mesenchyme exclusive of the reticuloendothelialsystem and glia".[2]"

Stroma is generally non-parenchymal tissue within an organ that plays a structural role. Parenchyma is the functional tissue of an organ. So if you take an organ's non-functional tissue, you could basically call that stroma.

 

[Lothric]

Since stroma plays a structural role (i.e. is supportive just like soft tissue) I'm going to equalize them as terms as the term is seldom used in the literature (FA/Pathoma).