A modern reproducible method for the histologic grading of astrocytomas with statistical classification tools.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether statistical classification tools can infer the correct World Health Organization (WHO) grade from standardized histologic features in astrocytomas and how these tools compare with GRADO-IGL, an earlier computer-assisted method.


METHODS
A total of 794 human brain astrocytomas were studied between January 1976 and June 2005. The presence of 50 histologic features was rated in 4 categories from 0 (not present) to 3 (abundant) by visual inspection of the sections under a microscope. All tumors were also classified with the corresponding WHO grade between I and IV. We tested the prediction performance of several statistical classification tools (learning vector quantization [LVQ], supervised relevance neural gas [SRNG], support vector machines [SVM], and generalized regression neural network [GRNN]) for this data set.


RESULTS
The WHO grade was predicted correctly from histologic features in close to 80% of the cases by 2 modern classifiers (SRNG and SVM), and GRADO-IGL was predicted correctly in > 84% of the cases by a GRNN.


CONCLUSIONS
A standardized report, based the 50 histologic features, can be used in conjunction with modern classification tools as an objective and reproducible method for histologic grading of astrocytomas.
Röhrl
Norbert
N
Institut für Analysis, Dynamik und Modellierung, Universität Stuttgärt, Germany. roehrl@iadm.uni-stuttgart.de
Iglesias-Rozas
José R
JR
Weidl
Galia
G
D001254:Astrocytoma / Q000145:classification / Q000473:pathology*; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D014944:World Health Organization