Morphometric investigations on endocrine glands. VI. Point counting in th thyroid gland

The component distributions in a dog thyroid section are found to be inhomogeneous in a different degree. Therefore special conditions are needed in morphometrical research of such tissues to get accurate results, e.g. a sufficiently large area. The net point distance may reach 400 microns for test series, and 1,000 or more hits are enough for an acceptable representative value. The often observed zonal heterogeneity for the colloid and epithelium is diminished and blurred if the relative colloid percentage is high. The interstitium values show an anisotropic distribution in the gland. The epithelium: colloid ratio seems to be higher around larger areas of interstitium in relation to the data of the total section, but no high correlation between these both parameters was observed.