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kOBCS©: a novel software calculator program of the Objective Breast Cosmesis Scale (OBCS)

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Abstract

Purpose

The Objective Breast Cosmesis Scale (OBCS) is an objective method that documents the aesthetic changes in breast cancer patients. This work evaluates the kOBCS© software (http://www.kobcs.info) which simplifies the estimation of the OBCS values.

Methods

Five schematic drawings were photographed and imported into the kOBCS©. Thirty photos of breast cancer patients were imported into kOBCS©; 20 users (experts and non-experts) evaluated the photographs on two different settings. Subjective evaluation was performed using the Harvard breast cosmesis scale.

Results

There was a highly significant correlation between the OBCS values based on hand measurements and the values estimated by kOBCS© (r = 0.997, P < 0.001). Agreement among the users using the kOBCS© was strong with high statistical significance (ICC = 0.846, P < 0.001, 95% CI 0.774–0.910, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.991). Results of the subjective analyses and mean OBCS values as estimated by kOBCS© correlated significantly (r = 0.961, P < 0.001).

Conclusions

The kOBCS© is a reliable and reproducible easy-to-use software for reporting breast cosmesis following breast-conserving therapy.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Ádám Kovács from the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary for the help in developing the kOBCS©. We would like also to thank Stefano Gentileschi, Giorgia Garganese, Martina Ricci, Calogero Messana, Alida Savelli, Cesare Marino, and Maria-Vittoria Notari for their help in testing the software.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Radiation Oncology, Ernst Von Bergmann Medical Center, Academic Teaching Hospital of Humboldt University Berlin (Charité), Potsdam, Germany

    Tamer Soror & Harun Badakhshi

  2. Radiation Oncology Department, National Cancer Institute (NCI), Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt

    Tamer Soror

  3. Radiation Oncology Section, Department of Surgery and Biomedical Sciences, University of Perugia and Perugia General Hospital, Perugia, Italy

    Valentina Lancellotta & Mohamed Mahmoud

  4. Interdisciplinary Brachytherapy Unit, University of Luebeck/UKSH-CL, Lübeck, Germany

    György Kovács & Cynthia Aristei

  5. KBO.COM UCSC Spin Off, Rome, Italy

    Vito Lanzotti

  6. Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS-UOC Radioterapia, Rome, Italy

    Luca Tagliaferri

  7. Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS-Università Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore, Istituto di Radiologia, Rome, Italy

    Calogero Casà

  8. Department of General and Oncologic Surgery, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Francesco Barberini

Authors
  1. Tamer Soror
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  2. Valentina Lancellotta
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  3. György Kovács
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  4. Vito Lanzotti
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  5. Luca Tagliaferri
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  6. Calogero Casà
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  7. Cynthia Aristei
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  8. Francesco Barberini
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  9. Mohamed Mahmoud
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  10. Harun Badakhshi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tamer Soror.

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The authors have no conflict of interest.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual, their photos included in the study.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Soror, T., Lancellotta, V., Kovács, G. et al. kOBCS©: a novel software calculator program of the Objective Breast Cosmesis Scale (OBCS). Breast Cancer 27, 179–185 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12282-019-01006-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12282-019-01006-w

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