Comparison of degrees of coronary arterial luminal narrowing determined by visual inspection of histologic sections under magnification among three independent observers and comparison to that obtained by video planimetry: an analysis of 559 five-millimeter segments of 61 coronary arteries from eleven patients.
The accuracy of determining degrees of luminal narrowing of 559 histologic sections from 61 human coronary arteries was evaluated by visual inspection under magnification (light microscopy) by three independent observers, and the results were compared to those obtained by video planimetry. With the per cent of cross-sectional area narrowing divided into four categories (0 to 25, 26 to 50, 51 to 75, and 76 to 100), both the extent of agreement between each independent observer and video planimetry, i.e., the accuracy of visual inspection under magnification and the extent of agreement among the independent observers, interobserver agreement, evaluated by the Kappa (K) statistic, were excellent. With a K value of 50 per cent indicating reasonably good agreement and values of greater than or equal to 70 per cent indicating strong agreement, the K values between the results of light microscopy and video planimetry by three observers were 61, 67, and 75 percent, respectively, and the extent of interobserver agreement was 72 per cent.
D001161:Arteriosclerosis / Q000473:pathology*; D003201:Computers; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods; D013690:Television