Published in

BioMed Central, Breast Cancer Research, 2(16), p. R43

DOI: 10.1186/bcr3647

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

International study on inter-reader variability for circulating tumor cells in breast cancer

Journal article published in 2014 by Michail Ignatiadis, Sabine Riethdorf, Francois-Clement Bidard, Isabelle Vaucher, Mustapha Khazour, Françoise Rothé, Jessica Metallo, Ghizlane Rouas, Rachel E. Payne, Raoul Charles Coombes, Ulrich Andergassen, Ingrid Teufel, Stella Apostolaki, Eleni Politaki, Dimitris Mavroudis and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Upload
Policy details
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been studied in breast cancer with the CellSearch® system. Given the low CTC counts in non-metastatic breast cancer, it is important to evaluate the inter-reader agreement. Methods CellSearch® images (N = 272) of either CTCs or white blood cells or artifacts from 109 non-metastatic (M0) and 22 metastatic (M1) breast cancer patients from reported studies were sent to 22 readers from 15 academic laboratories and 8 readers from two Veridex laboratories. Each image was scored as No CTC vs CTC HER2- vs CTC HER2+. The 8 Veridex readers were summarized to a Veridex Consensus (VC) to compare each academic reader using % agreement and kappa (κ) statistics. Agreement was compared according to disease stage and CTC counts using the Wilcoxon signed rank test. Results For CTC definition (No CTC vs CTC), the median agreement between academic readers and VC was 92% (range 69 to 97%) with a median κ of 0.83 (range 0.37 to 0.93). Lower agreement was observed in images from M0 (median 91%, range 70 to 96%) compared to M1 (median 98%, range 64 to 100%) patients ( P