

First, only a small fraction of any organ can be sampled under the microscope, and this can lead to bias. Two problems that can occur during quantitative microscopy are highlighted: sampling and the loss of a dimension. In the next step, it should be defined how these changes can be expressed by simple quantitative parameters, such as cell number for hyperplasia, mean volume for cellular hypertophy, surface area of gas-exchange area, length and number of blood vessels for angiogenesis.” (Ochs & Mühlfeld, “Dissecting lung structure by stereology”). hyperplasia of airway smooth muscle cells, hypertrophy of alveolar epithelial type II cells, loss of gas-exhange area, angiogenesis of peribronchial blood vessels. The data to be collected must be well understood and defined: “target parameters should be defined as endpoints, e.g.
#Stereology coefficient of error how to
(Ochs & Mühlfeld, “The challenges of measuring lung structure by microscopy, and how to handle them by stereology” para. Regarding the lung, such parameters may be the volume of alveolar septal tissue, the surface of the alveolar epithelium, the length of nerve fibers innervating the conducting airways or the number of alveoli. The basic parameters that describe the internal lung structure in quantitative terms are characterized by their dimensions: volume (dimension 3), surface (dimension 2), length (dimension 1), number (dimension 0). Physiology, 305(1):L15-22.This paper by Ochs Mühlfeld ( 2013) is an excellent guide for using unbiased stereology to estimate the first order characteristics of the lung:

Mühlfeld (2013) Quantitative Microscopy of the Lung – A Problem-Based Approach Part 1: Basic Principles of Lung Stereology.
