Data analysis of the Second International Workshop on Small Cell Lung Cancer Antigens

Methods of data collection for the 2nd Small Cell Lung Cancer Workshop are described, and data reliability is reviewed. The method of cluster analysis of the workshop antibodies is described and discussed. Of the 27,111 results submitted 20,705 were judged to be reliable for analysis and 13,802 of these came from immunohistology experiments. Data derived from immunocytochemistry experiments were somewhat less reproducible than flow cytometry, immunohistology and ELISA experiments. The cluster analysis was developed from methods employed in the leucocyte antigens workshops. Several checks on the methods of cluster analysis and the transformation of data did not substantially alter the final groupings. The workshop confirms that, although there are some methodological difficulties, the cluster analysis can successfully be applied to data derived largely from immunohistology, and thus has applicability to other tumour types.