A second opinion pathology review improves the diagnostic concordance between prostate cancer biopsy and radical...

The Gleason scoring system is an essential tool for determining the treatment strategy in prostate cancer (PCa). However, the Gleason grade group (GGG) often differs between needle-core biopsy (NCB) and radical prostatectomy (RP) specimens. We investigated the diagnostic value of a second opinion pathology review using NCB specimens in PCa.

We retrospectively evaluated 882 patients who underwent robot-assisted RP from January 2012 to September 2019. Of these, patients whose original biopsy specimens were obtained from another hospital and reviewed by the urological pathology expert at our institution were included in the study. Patients who received neoadjuvant hormonal therapy were excluded from the study. Weighted kappa (k) coefficients were used to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of each review.

A total of 497 patients were included in this study. Substantial agreement (weighted k = 0.783) in the GGG between initial- and second-opinion diagnoses based on NCB specimens was observed in 310 cases (62.4%). Although diagnoses based on a single opinion showed moderate agreement with the GGG of RP specimens (initial: 35.2%, weighted k = 0.522; second opinion; 38.8%, weighted k = 0.560), matching initial and second opinion diagnoses improved the concordance (42.9%, 133/310 cases) to substantial agreement (weighted k = 0.626).

A second opinion of PCa pathology helps to improve the diagnostic accuracy of NCB specimens. However, over half of diagnoses that matched between the initial and second opinions differed from the diagnosis of RP specimens.