Some new, simple and efficient stereological methods and their use in pathological research and diagnosis

Abstract

Stereology is a set of simple and efficient methods for quantitation of three‐dimensional microscopic structures which is specifically tuned to provide reliable data from sections. Within the last few years, a number of new methods has been developed which are of special interest to pathologists. Methods for estimating the volume, surface area and length of any structure are described in this review. The principles on which stereology is based and the necessary sampling procedures are described and illustrated with examples. The necessary equipment, the measurements, and the calculations are invariably simple and easy.

The combination of HSV-tk and endostatin gene therapy eradicates orthotopic human renal cell carcinomas in nude mice

“…Cavalier's method 25 was used to calculate tumor volumes from MRI. Relative volumes (pretreatment / posttreatment ratio) were used.…”

Motor cortical stimulation promotes synaptic plasticity and behavioral improvements following sensorimotor cortex lesions

“…Serial silver gray ultathin (70 nm) sections were obtained from the osmicated samples using a Leica Ultracut R microtome, mounted onto slotted copper grids coated with formvar film and stained with lead citrate to be used for electron microscopic measures of layer V synaptic density. All histological data were collected blinded to the experimental condition.Neuronal Density Measures-The density of neurons in layer V of the peri-lesion cortex was estimated using the physical disector method (Gundersen et al, 1988). Disector pairs used for neuronal density measures consisted of digital images taken from every other serial semithin section using a Nikon Optiphot-2 light microscope equipped with a rotating stage.…”

Intratumoural and peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma undergoing interleukin-2 based immunotherapy: association to objective response and survival

“…A stereological examination was performed using a morphometric system consisting of a Olympus AH-3 microscope with a motorized stage, controlled by a computer for manual interactive counting on the computer screen (Gundersen et al, 1988). The software used was CAST-GRID v 1.09, developed by Olympus, Denmark.…”

“…All statistical differences in peripheral blood and tumour tissue lymphocyte subsets have the same direction, and it is thus unlikely that the significant findings are artefacts due to multiple comparisons. In order to avoid sampling bias in measuring intratumoral immune cells, we used stereological examination (Gundersen et al, 1988), although most immunohistochemistry studies have used semiquantitive scoring techniques. Using this random and systematic sampling technique with an unbiased counting frame, a high level of reproducibility was found, as has also been demonstrated by others (Gundersen et al, 1988;Hansen et al, 1998).…”

“…In order to avoid sampling bias in measuring intratumoral immune cells, we used stereological examination (Gundersen et al, 1988), although most immunohistochemistry studies have used semiquantitive scoring techniques. Using this random and systematic sampling technique with an unbiased counting frame, a high level of reproducibility was found, as has also been demonstrated by others (Gundersen et al, 1988;Hansen et al, 1998). However, this technique is associated with considerable workload and time consumption.…”