[Automated morphometric and densitometric studies of pituitary adenomas]

A set of 131 pituitary adenomas has been investigated morphometrically and densitometrically by use of a system for automatical microscope picture analysis (AMPA). About 500 nuclei per adenoma have been scanned for estimating 20 nuclear and tissue parameters (5 and 10 min per adenoma). Endocrine inactive adenomas differ significantly by some parameters from active adenomas. The cell nuclei of inactive tumors are smaller, of more spherical and have higher extinction values on an average. The nuclei of adenomas from patients with Cushing's syndrome differ from the nuclei of prolactinomas and acromegalics because of their lower similarity to spheres. We found no correlation between the nuclear and tissue parameters analyzed in this study and the blood hormone levels.