A Multisite Performance Study Comparing the Reading of Immunohistochemical Slides on a Computer Monitor With Conventional Manual Microscopy for Estrogen and Progesterone Receptor Analysis
Aziza Nassar, Cynthia Cohen, Sally S. Agersborg, Weidong Zhou, Kathleen A. Lynch, Edward A. Barker, Burton L. Vanderbilt, Jim Thompson, Eugene R. Heyman, Allen H. Olson, Holger Lange, Momin T. Siddiqui · American Journal of Clinical Pathology · 2011
A multisite study was conducted to assess the performance of the Aperio digital pathology system (Aperio Technologies, Vista, CA) for reading estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) slides on a computer monitor. A total of 520 formalin-fixed breast tissue specimens were assayed at 3 clinical sites for ER and PR (260 each). Percentage and average staining intensity of positive nuclei were assessed. At each site, 3 pathologists performed a blinded reading of the glass slides using their microscopes initially and later using digital images on a computer monitor. Comparable percentages of agreements were obtained for manual microscopy (MM) and manual digital slide reading (MDR) (ER, percentage of positive nuclei with cutoffs: MM, 91.3%-99.0%/MDR, 91.3%-100.0%; PR, percentage of positive nuclei with cutoffs: MM, 83.8%-99.0%/MDR, 76.3%-100.0%). Reading ER and PR slides on a computer monitor using the Aperio digital pathology system is equivalent to reading the slides with a conventional light microscope.