Interobserver reproducibility of pathological variables in patients with high grade non-muscle invasive bladder cancer

The purpose of our study was to assess the interobserver variability in tumor stage and grade in patients with non-muscle invasive transitional cell bladder cancer. The prognostic relevance of grade and stage from both the initial and review diagnosis were determined. Pathological slides from 154 superficial bladder carcinomas were reviewed. Progression-free survival and hazard ratios for each stage and grade were calculated with Kaplan-Meyer method and Cox proportional model. There were significant interobserver differences in both the grading and staging of tumours. In pathology review overgrading was more frequent than undergrading, pathology review downstaged T category to stage Ta in 60,0 % of cases originally classified as stage T1.

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