A note on the stereological implications of irregular spacing of sections |
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| Authors: | A. BADDELEY,K.A. DORPH-PETERSEN&dagger ,& E.B. VEDEL JENSEN&Dagger |
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| Affiliation: | School of Mathematics &Statistics, University of Western Australia, Nedlands WA, Australia; Centre for Basic Psychiatric Research, Aarhus Psychiatric University Hospital, Risskov, Denmark and Translational Neuroscience Program, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Thiele Centre, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark |
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| Abstract: | Stereological methods for serial sections traditionally assume that the sections are exactly equally spaced. In reality, the spacing and thickness of sections can be quite irregular. This may affect the validity and accuracy of stereological techniques, especially the Cavalieri estimator of volume. We present a new formula for the accuracy of the Cavalieri estimator that includes the effect of random variability in section spacing. A modest amount of variability in section spacing can cause a substantial increase in estimator variance. |
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| Keywords: | Cavalieri estimator coefficient of error (CE) systematic sampling variance formulae. |
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