We will illustrate these pitfalls and provide histological confirmation of staging where available.
Limitations of this study include the lack of confirmation of pubertal stage (Tanner's stages) of all subjects, as this would have been useful to correlate with the data obtained; this was an observational study covering a specific 3-year period and therefore the values obtained for the metabolic markers may not necessarily be linked directly to adult obesity.
Independent confirmation of diagnosis, stage and treatment in all patients was performed by one of the investigators (ER or MC).
After the quick confirmation of development stage, embryos were subjected to dissection under the microscope (Leica MZ-125).
Confirmation of health stage was also performed on large follicles showing CYP19A1 expression assessed by qRT-PCR similar to that observed in healthy large follicles using microarray analysis [ 20].
Upon confirmation of eligibility, stage, age and race, if the sampling quota had been met for the specified group, the abstractor was prompted to move on to the next subject.
Eligible patients enrolled in the phase III double-blind HORIZON II study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT00399035) were ⩾18 years old with histologic/cytologic confirmation of metastatic (stage IV) CRC; had a World Health Organization (WHO) performance status of 0/1; and a life expectancy of ⩾12 weeks (Hoff et al, 2012).
Sensitivity, however, could have been lower for a variety of reasons, including failure to use appropriate diagnosis codes for metastatic disease when metastases were indeed present, and generation of claims for biopsies and/or procedures prior to final pathological confirmation of clinical stage.
Imaging is used widely in oncologic practice for lesion characterization, confirmation of diagnosis, staging, treatment planning, targeting therapy, assessing treatment response, and surveillance.
