EVALUATION OF INTER-OBSERVER AGREEMENT IN HIF2ALPHA EXPRESSION INTERPRETATION FOR ORAL SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA USING FLEISS' KAPPA ANALYSIS

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this research was to evaluate the degree of agreement among three separate pathologists by employing an H-score method to evaluate the presence of HIF2α (hypoxic-inducible factor-2 alpha) in cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).

Methods: H-scores acquired from immunohistochemistry for HIF2α were converted into nominal data (positive or negative) using a predetermined cutoff. Among the 70 samples of OSCC, the expression of HIF2α was independently analysed by three pathologists. Fleiss' kappa value was used to assess the level of agreement among the raters.

Results: A Fleiss' kappa coefficient for inter-observer agreement of 0.630 (p < 0.05) showed that the pathologists' agreement in identifying HIF2α expression was much greater than chance.

Conclusion: According to our findings, pathologists' evaluations of HIF2α expression in OSCC using an H-scoring method demonstrate a significant degree of agreement. These results show that Fleiss' kappa is a useful agreement statistic for investigations involving multiple raters and categorical data.