Cancers (Aug 2021)
Intra-Tumour Heterogeneity Is One of the Main Sources of Inter-Observer Variation in Scoring Stromal Tumour Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Triple Negative Breast Cancer
- Darren Kilmartin,
- Mark O’Loughlin,
- Xavier Andreu,
- Zsuzsanna Bagó-Horváth,
- Simonetta Bianchi,
- Ewa Chmielik,
- Gábor Cserni,
- Paulo Figueiredo,
- Giuseppe Floris,
- Maria Pia Foschini,
- Anikó Kovács,
- Päivi Heikkilä,
- Janina Kulka,
- Anne-Vibeke Laenkholm,
- Inta Liepniece-Karele,
- Caterina Marchiò,
- Elena Provenzano,
- Peter Regitnig,
- Angelika Reiner,
- Aleš Ryška,
- Anna Sapino,
- Elisabeth Specht Stovgaard,
- Cecily Quinn,
- Vasiliki Zolota,
- Mark Webber,
- Davood Roshan,
- Sharon A. Glynn,
- Grace Callagy
Affiliations
- Darren Kilmartin
- Discipline of Pathology, Lambe Institute for Translational Research, School of Medicine, National University of Ireland Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
- Mark O’Loughlin
- Discipline of Pathology, Lambe Institute for Translational Research, School of Medicine, National University of Ireland Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
- Xavier Andreu
- UDIAT-Centre Diagnòstic, Pathology Department, Institut Universitari Parc Taulí-UAB, Parc Taulí, 1, 08205 Sabadell, Spain
- Zsuzsanna Bagó-Horváth
- Department of Pathology, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria
- Simonetta Bianchi
- Division of Pathological Anatomy, Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, 50134 Florence, Italy
- Ewa Chmielik
- Tumor Pathology Department, Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology, Gliwice Branch, 44-102 Gliwice, Poland
- Gábor Cserni
- Department of Pathology, Bács-Kiskun County Teaching Hospital, 6000 Kecskemét, Hungary
- Paulo Figueiredo
- Laboratório de Anatomia Patológica, Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, 3000-075 Coimbra, Portugal
- Giuseppe Floris
- Laboratory of Translational Cell and Tissue Research, Department of Imaging and Pathology, University Hospitals Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
- Maria Pia Foschini
- Unit of Anatomic Pathology, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bellaria Hospital, 40139 Bologna, Italy
- Anikó Kovács
- Department of Clinical Pathology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, 41345 Gothenburg, Sweden
- Päivi Heikkilä
- Department of Pathology, Helsinki University Central Hospital, 00029 Helsinki, Finland
- Janina Kulka
- 2nd Department of Pathology, Semmelweis University Budapest, Üllői út 93, 1091 Budapest, Hungary
- Anne-Vibeke Laenkholm
- Department of Surgical Pathology, Zealand University Hospital, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
- Inta Liepniece-Karele
- Department of Pathology, Riga Stradins University, LV-1007 Riga, Latvia
- Caterina Marchiò
- Unit of Pathology, Candiolo Cancer Institute FPO-IRCCS, 10060 Candiolo, Italy
- Elena Provenzano
- Department of Histopathology, Cambridge University Hospitals National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, UK
- Peter Regitnig
- Diagnostic and Research Institute of Pathology, Medical University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
- Angelika Reiner
- Department of Pathology, Klinikum Donaustadt, 1090 Vienna, Austria
- Aleš Ryška
- The Fingerland Department of Pathology, Charles University Medical Faculty and University Hospital, 50003 Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic
- Anna Sapino
- Unit of Pathology, Candiolo Cancer Institute FPO-IRCCS, 10060 Candiolo, Italy
- Elisabeth Specht Stovgaard
- Pathology Department, Herlev University Hospital, DK-2730 Herlev, Denmark
- Cecily Quinn
- Irish National Breast Screening Programme, BreastCheck, St. Vincent’s University Hospital, D04 T6F4 Dublin, Ireland
- Vasiliki Zolota
- Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Patras, 26504 Rion, Greece
- Mark Webber
- Discipline of Pathology, Lambe Institute for Translational Research, School of Medicine, National University of Ireland Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
- Davood Roshan
- School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics, National University of Ireland Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
- Sharon A. Glynn
- Discipline of Pathology, Lambe Institute for Translational Research, School of Medicine, National University of Ireland Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
- Grace Callagy
- Discipline of Pathology, Lambe Institute for Translational Research, School of Medicine, National University of Ireland Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13174410
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 13,
no. 17
p. 4410
Abstract
Stromal tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) are a strong prognostic marker in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Consistency scoring sTILs is good and was excellent when an internet-based scoring aid developed by the TIL-WG was used to score cases in a reproducibility study. This study aimed to evaluate the reproducibility of sTILs assessment using this scoring aid in cases from routine practice and to explore the potential of the tool to overcome variability in scoring. Twenty-three breast pathologists scored sTILs in digitized slides of 49 TNBC biopsies using the scoring aid. Subsequently, fields of view (FOV) from each case were selected by one pathologist and scored by the group using the tool. Inter-observer agreement was good for absolute sTILs (ICC 0.634, 95% CI 0.539–0.735, p p p p < 0.001) cutpoints. However, there was a wide range of scores for many cases. Reproducibility scoring sTILs is good when the scoring aid is used. Heterogeneity is the main contributor to variance and will need to be overcome for analytic validity to be achieved.
Keywords
- TILs
- sTILs
- triple negative
- breast cancer
- reproducibility
- international immuno-oncology biomarker working group
