External quality assessment (EQA) program for the immunohistochemical detection of ER, PR and Ki-67 in breast cancer: results of an interlaboratory reproducibility ring study in China | BMC Cancer | Full Text

External quality assessment (EQA) program for the immunohistochemical detection of ER, PR and Ki-67 in breast cancer: results of an interlaboratory reproducibility ring study in China | BMC Cancer | Full Text



BMC Cancer

External quality assessment (EQA) program for the immunohistochemical detection of ER, PR and Ki-67 in breast cancer: results of an interlaboratory reproducibility ring study in China

• Tianjie Pu, 
• Ruohong Shui, 
• Jie Shi, 
• Zhiyong Liang, 
• Wentao Yang, 
• Hong Bu, 
• Qin Li, 
• Zhang Zhang & 
• China Anticancer Association Professional Committee of Tumour Pathology

BMC Cancer volume 19, Article number: 978 (2019) | Download Citation

Abstract

Background

An External Quality Assessment (EQA) program was developed to investigate the status of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and Ki-67 immunohistochemical (IHC) detection in breast cancer and to evaluate the reproducibility of staining and interpretation in 44 pathology laboratories in China.

Methods

This program was implemented through three specific steps. In study I, three revising centres defined the reference value for 11 sections. In study II, 41 participating centres (PC) stained and interpreted 11 sections by their own daily practice IHC protocols. In study III, all cases received second interpretation opinions.

Results

The stained slides of 44 laboratories were up to the interpretation standard. The overall interpretation concordance rate of this study was over 90%. A perfect agreement was reached among the PCs for the cases with ER+ and PR+ > 50% and Ki-67 > 30%, whereas a moderate agreement was observed for intermediate categories. After second interpretations, the misclassification rates for ER were reduced by 12.20%, for PR were reduced by 17.07%, and for Ki-67 were reduced by 4.88%. Up to 31 PCs observed a benefit from the second opinion strategy.

Conclusions

This project is the first EQA study performed on a national scale for assessment of ER, PR and Ki-67 status by IHC in China. In the whole IHC evaluation process, the intermediate categories were less reproducible than those with high expression rates. Second opinions can significantly improve the diagnostic agreement of pathologists’ interpretations.