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Background: The misuse of statistical methods in diagnostic accuracy studies has been criticized in many publications., Objective: To assess the use and misuse of statistical methods in medical journal articles., Methods: We reviewed 141 original articles from 6 cytopathology journals published in 2014., Results: In total, 16 articles used no descriptive statistics and 66 articles used no inferential statistics. Also, 82 articles did not report using any tests for diagnostic accuracy. The most commonly adopted statistical measure for diagnostic accuracy was sensitivity, followed by specificity. The most common inferential statistical methods were χ2 testing, the Fisher exact test, and the Cohen kappa coefficient, respectively. Only 78 articles were free of statistical errors. "No statistics were used although statistical methods were required" was the most common type of error, followed by "failure to select proper statistical methods.", Conclusion: Our assessment of use of statistical methods in this subsection of pathology demonstrated a need for improvement.

Objectives: There is little information regarding the utility of pathologic evaluation of the prostatic anterior fat pad (PAFP) in patients with a low preoperative probability of recurrence. Our study aimed to determine the utility of PAFP pathologic examination, especially for this group of patients., Methods: We analyzed a tertiary care academic center's radical prostatectomy (RP) specimens from 2009 to 2017., Results: Of 602 RP specimens, 420(70%) included the PAFP; four of 420 (1%) had lymph node involvement (LNI) in the PAFP. In two of four cases with LNI in the PAFP, this was the only site of LNI. Of these two cases, one occurred in a patient with low probability of recurrence and involved a nonpalpable PAFP lymph node., Conclusions: Pathologic evaluation of the PAFP may be useful even in patients with low probability of recurrence because it may change staging by detecting metastatic involvement of small PAFP lymph nodes.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to determine if the diagnosis of nephrogenic adenoma (NA) can be made on cytologic criteria alone and if pair box gene transcription factor 8 (PAX8) is useful in the diagnosis of NA in daily cytology practice., Methods: Cytologic features of NA previously described in a literature were used to identify NA cells in urinary specimens. Subsequently, all cytology and corresponding biopsy specimens were stained with the PAX8 immunohistochemistry stain. The stains were examined; the results were tabulated., Results: A total of 44 specimens were reviewed (35 with corresponding biopsy specimens diagnosed as NA and nine negative for NA diagnosis on corresponding biopsy specimens). Of them, 14 demonstrated features previously described as NA. None of atypical cells that were morphologically suspicious for NA showed positive staining, whereas all of the corresponding biopsy sections demonstrated nuclear PAX8 positivity. Only rare lymphocytes present in cytology specimens showed nuclear staining with PAX8., Conclusions: Assuming that the results of the PAX8 stain performed are accurate at least in most cases, as suggested by the presence of internal positive controls, our study shows that the previously described cytologic features of NA cannot be used as diagnostic criteria, since they are not characteristic for this entity., (© American Society for Clinical Pathology, 2016. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the accuracy of diagnosis and level of agreement of the cytologic diagnosis of low-grade urothelial carcinoma (LGUC) among experienced cytopathologists to help the development of the upcoming classification scheme ("The Paris System") of urinary cytology (UTCy)., Methods: Forty ThinPrep (Cytyc, Boxborough, MA) UTCy specimens (19 with corresponding biopsy specimens diagnosed as LGUC and 21 with negative biopsy and/or cystoscopy specimens) were blindly reviewed by six cytopathologists from three institutions and diagnosed as negative for malignancy (NM), atypical urothelial cells (AUCs), and LGUC. Interobserver agreement was measured with the weighted κ statistic. Each observer's receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and the area under the ROC curve (AUROC) were calculated., Results: Four to six reviewers diagnosed LGUC in five (26%) of 19 UTCy specimens, corresponding to a biopsy diagnosis of LGUC. Overall agreement was fair (κ = 0.30). After collapsing AUC with NM, the reviewers' ranges of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value for LGUC were 21% to 53%, 81% to 95%, 71% to 90%, and 57% to 67%, respectively. AUROC varied from 0.66 to 0.74., Conclusions: We found that UTCy has a low sensitivity but relatively high specificity, resulting in poor to fair accuracy for the diagnosis of LGUC; the level of agreement between reviewers was only fair to moderate., (Copyright© by the American Society for Clinical Pathology.)