Planimetry in pathology--a method in its own right besides stereology and automatic image analysis

Under the term planimetry all possibilities of quantitative morphological description of structures at the two-dimensional level which do not require densitometry and do not consider the 3rd spatial dimension are subsumed. Because planimetry has several advantages with respect to preparation techniques and structure recognition compared to stereology and expensive densitometric image analysis systems, it seems necessary to give a synoptic description of planimetry as a morphometric method in its own right in pathology. This should lead to a clinically orientated development in parallel to stereology and densitometry. The recent status and advances with regard to the methods of measuring and evaluation are discussed.