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Table 2 Impact of discordant estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 status between cores on agreement between tissue microarrays and the clinical record in phase III of the Carolina Breast Cancer Study

From: Intratumoral heterogeneity as a source of discordance in breast cancer biomarker classification

Central TMA

  

Agreement (%)

Kappa (95 % CI)

Clinical ER status

ER-negative, n (%)

ER-positive, n (%)

  

All cases, n = 1085

    

 ER-negative, n (%)

259 (90)

42 (5)

94

0.84 (0.80–0.87)

 ER-positive, n (%)

28 (10)

756 (95)

Concordant, n = 985

    

 ER-negative, n (%)

217 (96)

32 (4)

96

0.89 (0.86–0.92)

 ER-positive, n (%)

8 (4)

728 (96)

Discordant, n = 100

    

 ER-negative, n (%)

42 (68)

10 (26)

70

0.39 (0.22–0.57)

 ER-positive, n (%)

20 (32)

28 (74)

  

Clinical PR status

PR-negative, n (%)

PR-positive, n (%)

  

All cases, n = 1085

    

 PR-negative, n (%)

305 (80)

41 (6)

89

0.76 (0.72–0.80)

 PR-positive, n (%)

75 (20)

664 (94)

Concordant, n = 916

    

 PR-negative, n (%)

246 (91)

27 (4)

95

0.87 (0.83–0.90)

 PR-positive, n (%)

23 (9)

620 (96)

Discordant, n = 169

    

 PR-negative, n (%)

59 (53)

14 (24)

61

0.25 (0.12–0.38)

 PR-positive, n (%)

52 (47)

44 (76)

  

Clinical HER2 status

Negative

Equivocal

Positive

  

All cases, n = 1085

     

 Negative, n (%)

864 (93)

16 (80)

28 (21)

88

0.57 (0.51–0.63)

 Equivocal, n (%)

49 (5)

2 (10)

13 (10)

 Positive, n (%)

17 (2)

2 (10)

94 (70)

Concordant, n = 889

     

 Negative, n (%)

768 (99)

7 (88)

22 (21)

96

0.78 (0.72–0.84)

 Equivocal, n (%)

4 (0)

0 (0)

1 (1)

 Positive, n (%)

5 (1)

1 (12)

81 (78)

Discordant, n = 196

     

 Negative, n (%)

96 (63)

9 (75)

6 (19)

57

0.16 (0.07–0.28)

 Equivocal, n (%)

45 (29)

2 (17)

12 (39)

 Positive, n (%)

12 (8)

1 (8)

13 (42)

  1. Abbreviations: ER estrogen receptor, HER2 human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, PR progesterone receptor, TMA tissue microarray
  2. Concordant cases are those with the same biomarker status across all cores for a given case, while discordant cases are those with discordant biomarker status between any two cores for a given case