A Study of the Reproducibility of the Diagnostic Criteria for Acute Leukaemia

Abstract

The Leukemia Group of Middle Sweden recently started a new multicenter study of treatment of adult patients with acute leukemia. The criteria for the diagnosis, subclassification, degree of leukemic bone marrow infiltration, remission and relapse are to be used by the morphologists of 6 different pathology departments. The reproducibility of the criteria [histologic and cytologic] was studied by 3 morphologists in a retrospective review of a strictly consecutive series of 79 adult patients treated in the years 1978 to 1981. The reproducibility of the criteria and the concordance of the morphologists when using them increased when the criteria were made more detailed and precise.