Type:
Educational Exhibit
Keywords:
Management, Oncology, Nuclear medicine, PET-CT, CT, Diagnostic procedure, Safety, Outcomes analysis, Cancer, Outcomes, Multidisciplinary cancer care
Authors:
S. Sultana , S. mendes, A. Stockbridge, R. Rashid, M. Djearaman; Birmingham/UK
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-3273
Conclusion
A significant number of patients with incidental non lung cancer related findings have been not appropriately followed up.
Along with organising a mini-MDT to discuss those patients in details,
we also fed our results back to radiology department and thoracic MDT team.
Our study invokes the thought that whether there have been impact on other patients who were not in the audit period or discussed at different specialty MDTs.
In our cases,
the areas to improve on identified as:
•Clear documentation in PET-CT conclusions
•Findings to be flagged to MDT by the radiologist
•Improving Quality of MDT outcomes includes clear documentation of incidental finding site and significance,
what the recommended actions are and metioning clear ownership of who will act on recommendations.
Developing a tracking system to ensure completion of recommended actions has also been sugegsted.
As previous other studies showed,
although a large number of incidental findings are not clinically significant,
PET-CT scan has huge potential advantages of detecting second primary malignancies at an early stage and subsequent possible curative treatment if adequately investigated and followed up. Therefore,
institutions dealing with management of cancer patients will need to develop and implement their own effective pathway for appropriate investigation and follow up recommendations which should be subsequently persued for all cases with unexpected incidental findings to improve the overall quality of patient care.