Giving volume to the elephant in the imaging room

Giving volume to the elephant in the imaging room

Rudolf Virchow, the founder of cellular pathology, held that even when physical or chemical investigations yield the laws of physiology or medicine, the anatomist can still proudly state: This is the structure in which the law becomes manifest. In his words, "physiology presupposes anatomy." Pathological anatomy studies, at usual microstructural scales (approximately 1-100 μm), via light microscopic 2D histology, provided many insights into structure-function relationships of health and disease. For example, such studies established the progression of granulomas, bronchial erosions, microcavities, and destructive lung disease in tuberculosis. While histologic studies remain the cornerstone of such efforts, the advent of nano or micro-X-ray computed tomography (n/μCT) has now made it additionally possible to obtain 3D visualizations of soft and hard tissues, while preserving the tissue for additional investigations. This has applications for old as well as new diseases (Katsamenis et al, 2019; Tanabe & Hirai, 2021).