Abstract
Introduction: Evaluation of interstitial fibrosis is an essential component of any kidney biopsy report. This requires the degree of fibrosis to be accurately measured to validate these therapies. Unfortunately, however, there is little comparative information on the relative advantages of the various techniques to quantify fibrosis. The commonly used method for assessment of fibrosis traditionally has been a visual assessment. Morphometric assessment of fibrosis promises to be a tool which could quantify fibrosis better.
Objectives: We undertook this study to compare visual assessment with a morphometric method, in relation to serum creatinine levels.
Patients and Methods: A total sample size of 40 was calculated on the basis of prevalence studies. Evaluation of fibrosis of the cases by visual method was performed by an experienced renal pathologist on the Masson Trichrome stained slide and the result was expressed as a percentage of the total biopsy area. Evaluation of fibrosis was subsequently performed by image based computer assisted morphometric analysis using Biowizard 4.2 software.
Results: Correlation was carried out between visual and morphometric assessment of fibrosis and a moderate degree of correlation was obtained. Each of the methods was correlated against the serum creatinine levels and both showed a mild correlation.
Conclusion: We showed that there is moderate correlation between visual assessment of fibrosis on a trichrome stained slide and morphometric evaluation on the same slides.