CIN3 – Reporting in a Population-Based Cancer Registry - Public Health
October 5, 2020
Evaluating the Use of LAST 2-Tiered Nomenclature and Its Impact on Reporting Cervical
Lesions
in a Population-Based Cancer Registry
Mei-Chin Hsieh, PhD, MSPH, CTRa; Elizabeth Van Dyne, MD, MPHb; Christina Lefante,
MPH, CTRa;
Jean A. Shapiro, PhDb; Paran Pordell, MPHb; Mary Anne Lynch, MPHa; Natalie Gomez,
BSN, RNa;
Brent Mumphrey, BSa; Lauren Maniscalco, MPHa; Rachna Jetly-Shridhar, MD, MPHc; Mona
Saraiya, MD, MPHb;
Xiao-Cheng Wu, MD, MPH, CTRa
Abstract: Background: Since 2012, the Lower Anogenital Squamous Terminology (LAST)
Project recommended a 2-tiered nomenclature, low-grade and high-grade squamous intraepithelial
lesion (LSIL and HSIL), to replace the 3-tiered cervical intraepithelial neoplasia
(CIN) system for HPV-associated lesions. Prior to 2019, preinvasive cervical lesions
classified as CIN3, severe dysplasia, carcinoma in situ (CIS), and adenocarcinoma
in situ (AIS) were considered reportable to the Louisiana Tumor Registry for a CIN3
project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); but lesions
classified exclusively as high-grade/HSIL based on the 2-tiered system were not considered
reportable. Due to the terminology changes, we wanted to know whether pre-2019 reportable
criteria need to be modified to capture all reportable precancerous cervical cases
diagnosed in 2019 forward. Objectives: To evaluate the utilization of LAST 2-tiered
classification, low-grade and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion, and p16
immunohistochemistry (IHC) testing on cervical biopsy/surgical specimens, assess the
search criteria needed to identify high-grade lesions for the CDC-funded CIN3 project,
and assess the impact of underreporting cervical lesions caused by terminology changes.
Methods: An equal number of abnormal/precancerous and normal cervical findings from
biopsy pathology reports received in 2015 were randomly selected by an artificial
intelligence (AI) search engine developed by Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Inc
(AIM) using pre-2019 search criteria. Selected pathology reports were reflagged for
the reportability by AIM audit software based on 2019 search criteria and manually
reviewed for the use of reportable terms including CIN3, severe dysplasia, CIS, AIS,
highgrade/HSIL terminology, and CIN2 or CIN2-3 with positive p16 IHC testing. Cohen’s
kappa statistic was used to assess the agreement between AIM auto-coding and manual
review. Positive predictive values (PPV) and sensitivity tests were
computed to evaluate the reportable terms. Results: Six out of 9 surveyed laboratories
used 2-tiered terminology on cervical biopsy pathology reports and 7 performed p16
IHC tests. Of 1,974 randomly selected reports from 5 laboratories, 987 were flagged
as precancer by AI using pre-2019 search criteria. After adding the high-grade/HSIL
term into pre-2019 search criteria, precancerous reports increased by 29%. After manual
review, 41.6% of these cases were reportable precancerous cervical cases with a PPV
of 0.65 (95% CI, 0.62–0.67) and 13.6% had p16 IHC performed. Conclusions: Both the
2-tiered and 3-tiered nomenclature are needed to ensure complete identification of
all reportable high-grade cervical lesions.