Background: Basal cell carcinomas (BCC) are the most prevalent among non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC), which correspond to the most common skin cancers. BCC histopathological subtyping is a problem in therapeutic management. Therefore, we have decided to perform a histopathologic study for better classification of BCCs based on interobserver diagnostic judgment. Methods: We conducted this cross...

PURPOSE To retrospectively evaluate the interobserver agreement of radiologists who used the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) lexicon to characterize and categorize ultrasonographic (US) features of breast masses. MATERIALS AND METHODS No institutional review board approval or patient consent was required. Five breast radiologists retrospectively independently evaluated 267 ...

Many other functional classification schemes have been proposed besides the Gene Ontology [20][19][18][3][9]. Here we choose two to serve as a contrasting comparison to the Gene Ontology database: (1) the E. coli genome and proteome (GenProtEC) database [18], and (2) the Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins (COG) database [20]. We chose GenProtEC since we are focusing our investigation on...

Kappa statistics are widely-used to assess performance in quality assurance schemes. Low values, however, are difficult to interpret, especially when confidence intervals have not been calculated. A model of a dichotomous decision in pathology (benignancy or malignancy in fine needle aspirates of the breast) was used to calculate kappa statistics (with confidence limits) for increasing false po...

The reliability of the radiological assessment of the healing of tibial fractures remains undetermined. We examined the inter- and intraobserver agreement of the healing of such fractures among four orthopaedic trauma surgeons who, on two separate occasions eight weeks apart, independently assessed the radiographs of 30 patients with fractures of the tibial shaft which had been treated by intra...

PURPOSE To evaluate different carotid stenosis estimation methods with digital subtraction angiography. METHODS We assessed the intraobserver reproducibilty and interobserver variability of visual interpretation and the measurement methods used by the European Carotid Surgery Trial and the North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial. Angiographic stenosis measurements according to...

Investigators cite observer variability as a problem in using crackles to diagnose asbestosis. We measured agreement on the presence or absence of crackles noted during auscultation of 64 asbestos-exposed workers in order to clarify this question. There was 89 percent agreement between two observers who simultaneously examined subjects breathing from functional residual capacity (FRC). Kappa (k...