An evaluation of the quantitative parameters applied in bone histology

Abstract

An evaluation of the following histomorphometric parameters: absolute trabecular bone volume (ATBV), osteoid surfaces (OS), osteoid volume (OV), resorption surfaces (RS), and mean size of periosteocytic lacunae (POL) was carried out. Double determination on sections, obtained from an area 2 cm below the summit and 2 cm behind the anterior, superior, spine of the iliac crest from 20 normal individuals aged 20-40 years, showed that the precision of method by far outweighed the inter-individual variation. Parameters obtained from 9 different localizations within the iliac bone revealed that the volume of bone was the only parameter which was influenced if the bone specimen was removed more than 2 cm below or behind the standard localization. Randomly selected sections alternately stained with Masson trichrome and toluidin blue were used for the study of the influence of the staining method on the osteoid parameters. It was shown that Masson trichrome staining would generally result in a slightly higher value of osteoid surfaces. There was, however, a high correlation between the parameters obtained with the two methods. (OS: r = 0.96; OV: r = 0.87).