Comparison of point counting and planimetry methods for the assessment of cerebellar volume in human using magnetic resonance imaging: a stereological study

The cerebellum is involved in motor learning and cognitive function in human. Many studies have been conducted to assess the cerebellar volume. To the best of our knowledge, there is no cerebellar volume study evaluating the efficiency and the accuracy of point-counting and planimetry methods of the Cavalieri principle in the literature. In this study, the volume of cerebellum was estimated in 53 Turkish young volunteers (26 males and 27 females), aged between 20 and 25 who are free of any neurological symptoms and signs, using serial magnetic resonance (MR) images. The cerebellar volumes of subjects were determined on MR images using the point-counting and planimetry methods. The mean results of planimetry method were 116.69 +/- 10.1 and 114.41 +/- 9.3 cm(3) males and females, respectively. The mean results of point-counting method were 116.34 +/- 10.6 and 113.48 +/- 8.8 cm(3) in males and females, respectively. Our results revealed that female subjects had less cerebellar volumes compared with males, although there was no statistical significant difference between genders (P > 0.05). Total cerebellar volumes obtained by two different methods were not statistically different (P = 0.189) and they were correlated well to each other (r = 0.935). We found that the point-counting method takes less time than the planimetric method (mean 8 +/- 3.6 vs. 15 +/- 5.5 min). Thus, while planimetric and stereological approaches yield very similar results, the stereological method has the advantage of greater speed and, therefore, efficiency.