Reproducibility of European Association for the Study of the Liver criteria and modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors in patients treated with sorafenib
Funding information
This study was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning (2016R1A1A1A05005138). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation.
Abstract
Background & Aims
The European Association for the Study of the Liver criteria and the modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors are used for assessing the treatment outcomes of hepatocellular carcinoma. We investigated the inter- and intra-observer reproducibility of the European Association for the Study of the Liver criteria and modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma treated with sorafenib.
Methods
A total of 99 patients with treatment-naive advanced hepatocellular carcinoma receiving sorafenib were included. The κ-values for the inter- and intra-observer agreement of the treatment response were calculated.
Results
Inter-observer agreement for baseline tumour number was excellent, as reflected by the high κ-value. The κ-statistics showed “excellent” concordance between the 2 sets of measurements by observer A regarding the overall responses using the European Association for the Study of the Liver criteria (κ = .948, agreement rate = 84.8%) and modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (κ = .944, agreement rate = 83.8%; all P < .001). In addition, high κ-values indicated concordance between the first sets of measurements by observers A and B (κ = .991 by the European Association for the Study of the Liver criteria and .988 by modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors, all P < .001). When agreements in radiological overall responses between the 2 sets of measurements by observer B and between the second sets of measurements by observers A and B were calculated, similar results regarding high κ-values (>.8) were obtained.
Conclusions
The reproducibility of the European Association for the Study of the Liver criteria and modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors in assessing treatment outcomes was high in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma treated with sorafenib.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The authors do not have any disclosures to report.
