Eosinophil Counts in Mucosal Biopsies of the Ileum and Colon: Interobserver Variance Affects Diagnostic Accuracy

Figure 3

Positive and negative diagnoses for eosinophilic enteritis /colitis by different investigators (Invest. 1 to 6) examining the same 30 slides of 10 patients according to a standardized protocol. Thresholds were Ileum > 20 eosinophiles/HPF, hepatic flexure > 50 eosinophiles/HPF, rectum > 20 eosinophiles/HPF, normalized (Table 2). Results differed significantly (p < 0.05). Changing the thresholds to different values from the literature [9–13] did not change the overall picture (data not shown).