Table 2.

Lowest apparent sizes of spherical metastases of given diameters with step sectioning at given distances

Distance between sections	Metastasis size (diameter in mm)
	2.0	1.5	1.0	0.5	0.4	0.3	0.2	0.1
2 mm	0 (ITC)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
1.5 mm	1.32	0 (ITC)	0	0	0	0	0	0
1 mm	1.73	1.12	0 (ITC)	0	0	0	0	0
0.5 mm	1.94	1.41	0.87	0 (ITC)	0	0	0	0
0.25 mm	1.98	1.48	0.97	0.43	0.31	0.17	0	0
0.2 mm	1.99	1.49	0.98	0.46	0.35	0.22	0	0
0.15 mm	1.99	1.49	0.99	0.48	0.37	0.26	0.13	0
0.1 mm	2.0	1.50	0.99	0.49	0.39	0.28	0.17	0
0.05 mm	2.0	1.50	1.0	0.50	0.40	0.30	0.19	0.09

The cells that are below the stepped line correctly identify micrometastases as such. (For details, see table 1.)

ITC, isolated tumour cells.