OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the reproducibility of subjective immunoscoring of steroid receptors in breast cancer by inexperienced observers after brief training by one experienced observer. STUDY DESIGN: Thirteen inexperienced observers were trained for a few minutes semiquantitatively (0-4) to score tumor nuclei in two breast cancer frozen sections immunohistochemically stained each for estrogen or progesterone receptors. Then, the fractions of 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 "stained" nuclei were estimated individually. Thereafter, the experienced observer pointed out the nuclei one by one, and the participants scored these nuclei individually. From these data, histoscores were calculated. RESULTS: When comparing individual scorings (n = 1,320) with the gold standard, discrepancies occurred mainly between scores 2 and 3, and the best concordance was achieved for the scores 0 and 4. For the histoscores, coefficients of variations for the estimated scores (7.3-33.7, mean 17.2) were systematically higher than those derived from nucleus-by-nucleus scoring (2.6-15.4, mean 10.3). CONCLUSION: Inexperienced observers can be trained quickly to arrive at fairly reproducible histoscores for immunohistochemically stained estrogen and progesterone receptors in breast cancer frozen sections. Nucleus-by-nucleus scoring seems to be more reproducible than estimating fractions of nuclei with certain positivity and should be recommended in cases of values close to the decision threshold.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the reproducibility of subjective immunoscoring of steroid receptors in breast cancer by inexperienced observers after brief training by one experienced observer. STUDY DESIGN: Thirteen inexperienced observers were trained for a few minutes semiquantitatively (0-4) to score tumor nuclei in two breast cancer frozen sections immunohistochemically stained each for estrogen or progesterone receptors. Then, the fractions of 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 "stained" nuclei were estimated individually. Thereafter, the experienced observer pointed out the nuclei one by one, and the participants scored these nuclei individually. From these data, histoscores were calculated. RESULTS: When comparing individual scorings (n = 1,320) with the gold standard, discrepancies occurred mainly between scores 2 and 3, and the best concordance was achieved for the scores 0 and 4. For the histoscores, coefficients of variations for the estimated scores (7.3-33.7, mean 17.2) were systematically higher than those derived from nucleus-by-nucleus scoring (2.6-15.4, mean 10.3). CONCLUSION: Inexperienced observers can be trained quickly to arrive at fairly reproducible histoscores for immunohistochemically stained estrogen and progesterone receptors in breast cancer frozen sections. Nucleus-by-nucleus scoring seems to be more reproducible than estimating fractions of nuclei with certain positivity and should be recommended in cases of values close to the decision threshold.
Authors: P J van Diest; P van Dam; S C Henzen-Logmans; E Berns; M E van der Burg; J Green; I Vergote Journal: J Clin Pathol Date: 1997-10 Impact factor: 3.411
Authors: Patrick P Carriere; Shawn D Llopis; Anna C Naiki; Gina Nguyen; Tina Phan; Mary M Nguyen; Lynez C Preyan; Letitia Yearby; Jamal Pratt; Hope Burks; Ian R Davenport; Thu A Nguyen; KiTani Parker-Lemieux; Florastina Payton-Stewart; Christopher C Williams; Stephen M Boué; Matthew E Burow; Bridgette Collins-Burow; Aaron Hilliard; A Michael Davidson; Syreeta L Tilghman Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2015-12-22 Impact factor: 3.390