| Method |
"The subjects consisted of ten disease-control patients (7 male/4 female
age range 23-48 years) in whom a jejunal biopsy was performed
as part of their diagnostic work-up, but in whom gluten sensitivity
was excluded by the presence of a normal biopsy. There
were also 11 healthy volunteers (5 male and 6 female all under
30 years of age) recruited from the medical and paramedical staff
of this hospital. These 21 control mucosae were compared with
jejunal mucosae obtained from 20 patients (8 females, aged 2~58
years and 12 males, aged 25-72 years) with untreated gluten sensitivity." (Abstract:) "Four procedures were employed, of which two were geometrical, based on cylindrical or truncated conoid models. The third method evolved from the proportionality of area to volume, and required determination of cellular and nuclear profile areas, and an estimation of nuclear volume based on models conforming to (1) a prolate spheroid, or (2) a cylinder with hemispherical caps. This procedure appeared to underestimate enterocyte volumes and failed to reveal volume differences between controls and gluten-sensitive individuals. Finally, a fourth method was devised, based on traditional intraepithelial profile counts per hundred enterocyte nuclei, calculation of surface epithelial volume and of the absolute number of lymphocytes contained therein." |