3D Pathology Volumetric Technique: A Method for Calculating Breast Tumour Volume from Whole-Mount Serial Section Images

Table 1

Summary of tumour volumes. Tumour volumes were calculated following three methods: from digitally contoured, serial whole mount sections following the 3D pathology volumetric technique; from the regions indicated by the locations of simulated conventional sampling; from three linear measurements of maximum tumour extent (in ML, AP, and SI dimensions) assuming an ellipsoidal tumour shape.

	Method	Case A	Case B
	3D pathology volumetric	4.179 cm^3	5.105 cm^3
Invasive	Conventional samples	2.857 cm^3	4.954 cm^3
	Ellipsoidal approximation	29.489 cm^3; (44 mm × 40 mm × 32 mm)	7.540 cm^3; (25 mm × 24 mm × 24 mm)
	3D pathology volumetric	N/A	132 mm^3
In situ	Conventional samples	N/A	75 mm^3
	Ellipsoidal approximation	N/A	6 mm^3; (2 mm × 2 mm × 3 mm )