Keywords:
Musculoskeletal spine, CT, Computer Applications-General, Acute
Authors:
S. B. Gagrani1, R. Bhatt2, S. Lee3, N. Khan3; 1Birmingham/UK, 2Leicester /UK, 3Leicester/UK
DOI:
10.1594/essr2016/P-0019
Purpose
CT scan of cervical spine following trauma is one of the most common investigations performed in any emergency radiology department. In most institutions,
radiology residents provide out of hours interpretation of post traumatic cervical spine CT scans. Reports are subsequently checked and verified by specialist radiologists.
Timely and accurate interpretation of the CT scans plays an important role in patient treatment and outcome following cervical spine injury.
Discordant reports between radiology residents and Consultant Radiologists can occur due to a variety of factors.
These include cognitive,
perceptual,
and communication errors as well as satisfaction of search [1].
There have been a number of previous studies comparing CT reports between Consultants and radiology trainees.
These have demonstrated overall CT discrepancy rates varying between 8-25%,
with major amendments recorded as being between 0.8- 10% [2,
3,
4,
5,
6].
Our study focuses solely on out of hours CT C-Spine reporting.
It examines the discrepancy rate,
types of discrepancy and effect of discordant reports on patient management.