Ra. Burnett et al., OBSERVER VARIABILITY IN HISTOPATHOLOGICAL REPORTING OF MALIGNANT BRONCHIAL BIOPSY SPECIMENS, Journal of Clinical Pathology, 47(8), 1994, pp. 711-713
Aims-To histopathologists to classify lung carcinomas on bronchial bio
psy material using the current World Health Organisation (WHO) classif
ication. Methods-Eleven histopathologists each reviewed 100 randomly s
elected bronchial biopsy specimens which had originally been reported
as showing lung carcinoma. A single haematoxylin and eosin stained sec
tion from each case was circulated and a standard proforma completed.
These were analysed using K statistics. Results-The histopathologists
were excellent at distinguishing between small cell and non-small-cell
carcinoma kappa = 0.86), but not so good at subclassifying the non-sm
all cell carcinoma group kappa = 0.25). Conclusions-The clinically imp
ortant distinction between small cell and nonsmall cell carcinoma of t
he lung is reliably made by competent histopathologists even on Limite
d material.