A comparison of stereology and segmentation techniques for volumetric measurements of lateral ventricles in magnetic resonance imaging.

Lateral ventricular volumes were measured on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans by independent raters in 18 subjects (11 psychotic patients and 7 healthy control subjects) with two different approaches: a point-counting stereological (PCS) technique and a computerized technique based on segmentation algorithms. The correlation between the two techniques was very high (r = 0.96), and phantom studies showed good validity for both approaches. These findings and the technical simplicity of the PCS technique support its potential use for MRI morphometric measurements.