Stereological estimates of nuclear volume in primary lung cancer

The aim of this study is to provide unbiased, objective and reproducible morphometric data on primary lung carcinomas by using the stereological principle of estimating volume weighed mean volume of particles of arbitrary shape. The study includes 30 lung specimens; 10 from small cell carcinoma, 10 from squamous cell carcinoma, and 10 from adenocarcinoma. After standard fixation, embedding, sectioning and hematoxylin eosin staining, the mean nuclear volume was estimated using the formula: v upsilon = pi/3 . l0(3), where l0 is the length of the intercept through a test point hitting a nucleus measured in a random direction through the test point. The collection of the data took less than 10 min per specimen. The mean nuclear volume of small cell carcinomas varied from 109 to 238 microns 3 (group mean 152 microns 3), in squamous cell carcinomas from 407 to 826 microns 3, and in adenocarcinomas from 411 to 1046 microns 3 (group mean 736 microns 3). This simple and rapid method seems to provide unbiased, objective and reproducible data useful in the description and separation of primary lung carcinomas.