title: [Three-dimensional spatial texture of adenocarcinoma of the prostate by a combination of stereology and digital image analysis].
abstract: Second-order stereology combines stereology with stochastic geometry and digital image analysis to obtain an insight into the spatial architecture (texture) of tissues. In twenty radical prostatectomy specimens from patients with invasive adenocarcinomas of the prostate gland, the pair correlation function of the epithelial tissue component was estimated both for the carcinomatous and the tumour-free domains. After interactive segmentation of the gray level images, the method works fully automatically. The mean pair correlation function of carcinomatous tissue shows less clustering of epithelium at short distances and less rhythmicity of epithelium at long distances as compared to tumour-free tissue. This loss of glandular integrity is higher in cribriform than in tubular carcinomas. The results suggest that second-order stereology is a powerful tool for the objective evaluation of glandular differentiation.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Pathologie, Universität Ulm.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mattfeldt
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Vogel
authors.forename: H W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Gottfried
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D011467:Prostate / Q000473:pathology*; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D013269:Stochastic Processes