SOFTWARE FOR COUNTING CELLS AND ESTIMATING STRUCTURAL VOLUMES WITH THE OPTICAL DISSECTOR AND FRACTIONATOR

We describe MS-DOS software for the optical volume fractionator (OV , a stereological method combining the principles of the optical disecto r (Gundersen et al.: Acta Pathol. Microbiol. Immunol. Scand., 96:857-8 81, 1988) and fractionator (Gundersen: J. Microsc., 143:3-45, 1986). T he OVF program estimates the volume of a fixed and embedded structure, the numerical density of cells, and the total number of cells in a st ructure. The hardware requirements include a PC computer (386 or 486 w ith VGA graphics) and a conventional light microscope fitted with a ro tating stage, extension tube, and length gauge. The software includes an introduction, tutorial, simulator, laboratory toolkit, and report g enerator. The toolkit improves the efficiency of gathering stereologic al data with light microscopy and offers a convenient link between the data of light and electron microscopy. A novel algorithm, based on fr actionator sampling, gives the volume of a fixed and embedded structur e from the same set of sections used for cell counting. A laboratory e xample illustrates the operation of the software.