Rapid grain and cell counting for cell kinetic studies.

A commercially available bacterial colony counter has been adapted for the counting of radioautographic grains over individual cells in smears and for the counting of cells in histologic sections. For radioautographic grains, the correlation coefficients between counts obtained visually by 2 observers and between counts obtained visually and with the use of the instrument were similar (r=0.999 and r=0.998, respectively). The instrument counts were obtained more rapidly than the visual counts and were associated with less observer fatigue. Even though the performance of the instrument in counting cells in mouse bone marrow sections was less accurate than that in counting radioautographic grains, a good estimation of marrow cell number was obtained (r=0.968). Data on bone marrow cellularity were obtained far more rapidly than those with semiquantitative methods.