Quantification of human gastric G cell density in endoscopic biopsy specimens: effect of shape of specimen.

Experiments performed on endoscopic biopsy specimens show that when they are curved, as they often are, the inner surface of the mucosa is contracted and the outer surface is expanded. When estimating G cell numbers per unit length of mucosa from such biopsy specimens, artefacts produced by variations in shape are minimised by relating the number of G cells to the mean of the length of the muscularis mucosae and the length of the outer mucosal profile on the tissue section containing these cells.