Stereology: Theory and Applications

This book presents a comprehensive set of methods for quantifying geometric quantities such as the volume of a tumor, the total surface area of the alveoli in a lung, the length of plant roots, or of blood vessels, the number of neurons in a brain compartment, the connectivity number of trabecular bone, the mean size of grains in a rock, etc.. The methods, illustrated by twenty solved case studies, are based on properly sampled slices, sections, or projections of the material, observable under light, laser, or electron microscopy, or under non-invasive radiological devices such as ecography, computed tomography, or magnetic resonance imaging. Thus, the input usually consists of flat images, and the output consists of relevant quantities defined in three dimensions. Stereology is the discipline of providing sampling designs which warrant unbiased estimation of the corresponding quantities, that is, estimation with zero mean deviation from the target. Sampling is usually systematic (i.e., with regularly spaced probes), and sparse (as opposed to reconstructions) and it is thereby efficient and easy to implement.