Evaluation of cytokeratin-19 in breast cancer tissue samples: a comparison of automatic and manual evaluations of scanned tissue microarray cylinders.
BACKGROUND
Digital image (DI) analysis avoids visual subjectivity in interpreting immunohistochemical stains and provides more reproducible results. An automated procedure consisting of two variant methods for quantifying the cytokeratin-19 (CK19) marker in breast cancer tissues is presented.


METHODS
The first method (A) excludes the holes inside selected CK19 stained areas, and the second (B) includes them. 93 DIs scanned from complete cylinders of tissue microarrays were evaluated visually by two pathologists and by the automated procedures.


CONCLUSIONS
There was good concordance between the two automated methods, both of which tended to identify a smaller CK19-positive area than did the pathologists. The results obtained with method B were more similar to those of the pathologists; probably because it takes into account the entire positive tumoural area, including the holes. However, the pathologists overestimated the positive area of CK19. Further studies are needed to confirm the utility of this automated procedure in prognostic studies.
Cristina
C
Callau
Marylène
M
Lejeune
Anna
A
Korzynska
Marcial
M
García
Gloria
G
Bueno
Ramon
R
Bosch
Joaquín
J
Jaén
Guifré
G
Orero
Teresa
T
Salvadó
Carlos
C
López
D001331:Automation; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D053539:Keratin-19 / Q000378:metabolism*; D015588:Observer Variation; D046888:Tissue Array Analysis / Q000379:methods*
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D053539:Keratin-19