Minimum slice spacing required to reconstruct 3D shape for serial sections of breast tissue for comparison with medical imaging

There is currently an increasing interest in combining the information obtained from radiology and histology with the intent of gaining a better understanding of how different tumour morphologies can lead to distinctive radiological signs which might predict overall treatment outcome. Relating information at different resolution scales is challenging. Reconstructing 3D volumes from histology images could be the key to interpreting and relating the radiological image signal to tissue microstructure. The goal of this study is to determine the minimum sampling (maximum spacing between histological sections through a fixed surgical specimen) required to create a 3D reconstruction of the specimen to a specific tolerance. We present initial results for one lumpectomy specimen case where 33 consecutive histology slides were acquired.