When and to What End Do Pathologists Agree?

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Abstract
We are certainly pleased with the central message of the study by Wells et al. (1) that appears in this issue of the Journal which we take to be that pathologists are generally in agreement regarding diagnoses of benign and malignant breast disease It was also a pleasure to find that so many pathologists were willing to take part in a cooperative exercise regarding diagnostic agreement However, several points of clarification regarding the study and its conclusions are needed. These discussion points relate to special considerations of diagnostic implications for clinical management (2) and the performance of clinical trials. Indeed, a major use of this study may be to pinpoint those situations in which pathologists are likely to disagree so that we may target these elements for study.