Evaluation of the training program for p16/ Ki-67 dual immunocytochemical staining interpretation for laboratory staff without experience in cervical cytology and immunocytochemistry
Article Category: Research Article
Published Online: Mar 26, 2020
Page range: 201 - 208
Received: Jan 22, 2020
Accepted: Mar 04, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2020-0018
© 2020 Veronika Kloboves Prevodnik, Ziva Pohar Marinsek, Janja Zalar, Hermina Rozina, Nika Kotnik, Tine Jerman, Jerneja Varl, Urska Ivanus, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Background
p16/Ki-67 dual immunocytochemical staining (DS) is considered easy to interpret if evaluators are properly trained, however, there is no consensus on what constitutes proper training. In the present study we evaluated a protocol for teaching DS evaluation on students inexperienced in cervical cytology.
Methods
Initial training on 40 DS conventional smears was provided by a senior cytotechnologist experienced in such evaluation. Afterwards, two students evaluated 118 cases. Additional training consisted mainly of discussing discrepant cases from the first evaluation and was followed by evaluation of new 383 cases. Agreement and accuracy of students’ results were compared among the participants and to the results of the reference after both evaluations. We also noted time needed for evaluation of one slide as well as intra-observer variability of the teacher’s results.
Results
At the end of the study, agreement between students and reference was higher compared to those after initial training (overall percent agreement [OPA] 81.4% for each student, kappa 0.512 and 0.527
Conclusions
In teaching DS evaluation, the students’ progress has to be monitored using several criteria like agreement, accuracy and time needed for evaluating one slide. The monitoring process has to continue for a while after students reach satisfactory results in order to assure a continuous good performance. Monitoring of teacher’s performance is also advisable.