Microscopica acta. Supplement最新文献

In 114 autopsy cases of both sexes, aged between 31 and 97 years and without bone disease, the influence of mechanical forces on the age-dependent remodelling of the spongy bone was determined in the 3rd and 5th lumbar vertebrae and the neck of the femur. For this purpose contrasty X-ray images of 100 mu thick polished bone sections were analysed using the LEITZ texture analysis system. The volumetric density and the surface density are highest in the neck of the femur, lowest in the 3rd lumbar vertebra, and almost as low in the 5th lumbar vertebra. The volumetric density decreases with increasing age by about one-third in all three bones. Correspondingly, the surface density also decreases in the lumbar vertebrae by one-third, but only by 18% in the neck of the femur. The specific surface reveals no age differences in the lumbar vertebrae, but increases by 19% in the neck of the femur. The constancy of the specific surface in the lumbar vertebrae can be explained by the fact that compensatory hypertrophy of the remaining trabeculae takes place. This compensatory growth of bone does not occur in the neck of the femur. The age-dependent decrease in spongy bone manifests itself in a residual spongiosa structure that depends on compressive forces in the case of the lumbar vertebrae and bending forces in the neck of the femur.

Stereological investigations (Classimat) of the capillary net of 4 age-groups, ranging between 19 and 94 years, revealed significant increase of capillary volume and total length, and decreased intercapillary distances in the aging putamen. Neuronal size and shape measurements (Texture-Analyzer-System) of the same brain region showed significant changes between the young (19-44 y.) and oldest (85-94 y.) group, indicating senile atrophy of the neuronal perikarya. Quantitative image-analysis facilitates to evaluate new morphometrical data of the aging process in the human brain, which are important for a pharmacological concept of treating cerebral insufficiency symptoms.

The Leyden Television Analysis System (LEYTAS) is applied to the automated analysis of five positive specimens (2 cases of severe dysplasia, 2 cases of carcinoma in situ and 1 case of invasive carcinoma) and five negative specimens (4 cases of inflammation and 1 normal specimen). Two detection criteria based on size and contrast (so called 'top hat' transformation) are used to detect suspect nuclei. Thresholds and sizes have been used at two levels: 'high level' to detect very large and/or dark nuclei, and 'low level' to detect nuclei, of which absorption and/or size is only slightly increased compared to the nuclei of normal epithelial cells. In all positive specimens analysed with the 'high level' program suspect nuclei are automatically detected, whereas no nuclei are detected in any of the negative specimens. Using the 'low level' program many more suspect nuclei are detected in the positive specimens (up to a number of 294). This program results in some detected nuclei in the negative specimens, but the number remains relatively low (not more than 3 in the investigated cases).

The semiautomatic image analysis system A.S.M. of Leitz was connected to a PDP-11 network. Thus, the x-y-z coordinates of serial sections of brains and of brain structures could be stored. These coordinates could then be used for three-dimensional reconstruction.