Abstract
BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization classification of myeloproliferative neoplasms discriminates between essential thrombocythemia and the prefibrotic phase of primary myelofibrosis. This discrimination is clinically relevant because essential thrombocythemia is associated with a favorable prognosis whereas patients with primary myelofibrosis have a higher risk of progression to myelofibrosis or blast crisis. DESIGN AND METHODS: To assess the reproducibility of the classification, six hematopathologists from five European countries re-classified 102 non-fibrotic bone marrow trephines, obtained because of sustained thrombocytosis. RESULTS: Consensus on histological classification defined as at least four identical diagnoses occurred for 63% of the samples. Inter-observer agreement showed low to moderate kappa values (0.28 to 0.57, average 0.41). The percentage of unclassifiable myeloproliferative neoplasms rose from 2% to 23% when minor criteria for primary myelofibrosis were taken into account. In contrast, the frequency of primary myelofibrosis dropped from 23% to 7%, indicating that the majority of patients with a histological diagnosis of primary myelofibrosis did not fulfill the complete criteria for this disease. Thus, over 50% of cases in this series either could not be reproducibly classified or fell into the category of unclassifiable myeloproliferative neoplasms. CONCLUSIONS: World Health Organization criteria for discrimination of essential thrombocythemia from prefibrotic primary myelofibrosis are poorly to only moderately reproducible and lead to a higher proportion of non-classifiable myeloproliferative neoplasms than histology alone.