A COMPUTER-ASSISTED STEREOLOGICAL QUANTIFICATION PROGRAM - OPENSTEREO

At present, the stereological assessment of histological sections is m ade possible by the use of manual counting techniques which estimate m easurement parameters. These methods are tedious, time-consuming, and subject to operator error. This paper describes a UNIX-based computer program, OpenStereo, which was developed to facilitate the quantitativ e investigation of innervation and vascularity from histological secti ons. We designed OpenStereo to reduce operator error and increase the efficiency of stereological point counting for volume estimation and i ntercept counting for surface area analysis. The program was written i n the C language for the Sun(TM) Workstation and uses the XView graphi cs user interface. Digital images, obtained by a variety of modalities , may be processed using stereological point counting, interceptions, planimetry, or thresholding techniques. The program displays selected images in a random fashion for analysis or processing and records the number of manually selected points or interceptions. Delineation of th e reference space provides the computer with the data necessary to cal culate volume or surface densities. The efficiency of OpenStereo was d emonstrated by performing a pilot study on the quantification of inner vation in the normal human colon and ileum. This stereological package benefits from the features of the X-windowing environment and has pro ved to be suitable for what has hitherto been a tedious and time-consu ming task. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.