title: A comparison of pathological methods of measuring lung cancer volume.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine which of several pathological methods of measuring lung cancer volume compared most favourably with the gold standard.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three pathological methods were used on 54 resected lung cancers: (1) measuring the maximum dimension and assuming a spherical shape; (2) measuring three dimensions and assuming an ellipsoidal shape; and (3) deriving the volume from the area of tumour on sequential 1 cm slices using a photocopier and an image analysis system. The gold standard was obtained from the area of whole mount tumour sections on sequential 0.1 cm slices of eight cancers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Volumes derived from 1 cm lung slices gave results closest to our gold standard but assuming tumours were ellipsoidal was only a slightly less accurate and less time consuming method. Assuming cancers were spherical resulted in gross overestimation of the tumour volumes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  For practical purposes, it is reasonable to measure three dimensions of a lung tumour at sectioning and calculate the volume using the formula for an ellipsoid (V = 4/3 pi d.e.f, where d, e and f are the semi-axes).
authors.affiliation: Department of Histopathology, City Hospital, Nottingham.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Binks
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Clelland
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Layton
mesh_terms: D002277:Carcinoma / Q000473:pathology*; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*