Stereologic and morphometric measurements in diagnostic histopathology: statistical considerations
Abstract
In terms of variation there are three basic types of studies performed in histopathology (prospective, retrospective and diagnostic studies). There are two ways of applying stereologic or morphometric measurements in such studies: group morphometry/stereology and diagnostic morphometry/stereology. In diagnostic histopathology the sources of variation are more numerous and the range of variation is wider than in prospective or retrospective studies. Also biological variation between normal and pathological samples is larger than between normal samples. This suggests that the principles applied in group morphometry cannot always be recommended in diagnostic morphometry. Test systems in diagnostic histopathology can be best characterized by estimating the reproducibility of the measurements. We have applied kappa statistic and intraclass correlation coefficient for that purpose.