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| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2012 | Volume
: 60
| Issue : 1 | Page : 61--65 |
Concordance between local, institutional, and central pathology review in glioblastoma: Implications for research and practice: A pilot study
Tejpal Gupta1, Vimoj Nair1, Sridhar Epari2, Torsten Pietsch3, Rakesh Jalali1
1 Department of Radiation Oncology, Advanced Centre for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) and Tata Memorial Hospital, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, India
2 Department of Pathology, Advanced Centre for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) and Tata Memorial Hospital, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, India
3 Department of Neuro-Pathology, University of Bonn, Germany
Correspondence Address:
Tejpal Gupta
Department of Radiation Oncology, Advanced Centre for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Tata Memorial Centre, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai-410-210, Maharashtra
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/0028-3886.93594
Background: There is significant inter-observer variation amongst the neuro-pathologists in the typing, subtyping, and grading of glial neoplasms for diagnosis. Centralized pathology review has been proposed to minimize this inter-observer variation and is now almost mandatory for accrual into multicentric trials. We sought to assess the concordance between neuro-pathologists on histopathological diagnosis of glioblastoma. Materials and Methods: Comparison of local, institutional, and central neuro-oncopathology reporting in a cohort of 34 patients with newly diagnosed supratentorial glioblastoma accrued consecutively at a tertiary-care institution on a prospective trial testing the addition of a new agent to standard chemo-radiation regimen. Results: Concordance was sub-optimal between local histological diagnosis and central review, fair between local diagnosis and institutional review, and good between institutional and central review, with respect to histological typing/subtyping. Twelve (39%) of 31 patients with local histological diagnosis had identical tumor type, subtype and grade on central review. Overall agreement was modestly better (52%) between local diagnosis and institutional review. In contrast, 28 (83%) of 34 patients had completely concordant histopathologic diagnosis between institutional and central review. The inter-observer reliability test showed poor agreement between local and central review (kappa statistic=0.12, 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.03-0.32, P=0.043), but moderate agreement between institutional and central review (kappa statistic=0.51, 95%CI: 0.17-0.84, P=0.00003). Agreement between local diagnosis and institutional review was fair. Conclusions: There exists significant inter-observer variation regarding histopathological diagnosis of glioblastoma with significant implications for clinical research and practice. There is a need for more objective, quantitative, robust, and reproducible criteria for better subtyping for accurate diagnosis.
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