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Structured reporting in petrous bone MRI examinations: impact on report completeness and quality

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International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

To investigate whether structured reports (SRs) provide benefits regarding the completeness and the clarity of reports, as well as regarding the satisfaction of the referring physicians compared to narrative freetext reports (NRs) of MRI examinations of the petrous bone.

Methods

After sample size calculation, 32 patients with clinically indicated MRI examinations of the petrous bone were included in this retrospective study. The already existing NRs were taken from the radiologic information system. The corresponding SRs were retrospectively generated by two radiologists using an online-based application. All 64 reports (one NR and one SR per patient) were evaluated by two head and neck physicians using a questionnaire.

Results

While 41% of the SRs showed no missing report key feature, all NRs exhibited at least one missing key feature (p < 0.001). SRs achieved significantly higher satisfaction rates regarding the linguistic quality and overall report quality compared to NRs: Using a 6-point Likert scale (1 = insufficient to 6 = excellent), SRs were rated with a median value of 6 [interquartile range (IQR): 1] for linguistic as well as overall quality, and NRs were rated with a median of 5 (IQR: 0) for linguistic as well as overall quality (p < 0.001).

Conclusions

Structured reporting of petrous bone MRI examinations may positively influence the completeness and quality of radiologic reports. Due to the easier readability and facilitation of information extraction, SRs improve the satisfaction level of the referring physicians.

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Abbreviations

SRs:

Structured reports

NRs:

Narrative freetext reports

std:

Standard deviation

IQR:

Interquartile range

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Author notes

  1. Marco Armbruster and Sebastian Gassenmaier have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU), Campus Großhadern, Marchioninistraße 15, 81377, Munich, Germany

    Marco Armbruster, Sebastian Gassenmaier, Dominik Nörenberg, Nora N. Sommer, Wieland H. Sommer & Franziska Braun

  2. Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU), Campus Großhadern, Munich, Germany

    Mareike Haack & Maximilian Reiter

  3. Institute of Clinical Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, University Medical Center Mannheim, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Thomas Henzler

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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian Gassenmaier.

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Conflict of interest

Author Marco Armbruster and author Wieland H. Sommer were co-founders of a company (Smart Reporting GmbH) for structured reporting (www.smart-radiology.com).

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This retrospective study was approved by the institutional review board. This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

This article does not contain patient data beyond the anonymized retrospective imaging data. Informed consent was waived by the institutional review board.

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Armbruster, M., Gassenmaier, S., Haack, M. et al. Structured reporting in petrous bone MRI examinations: impact on report completeness and quality. Int J CARS 13, 1971–1980 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-018-1828-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-018-1828-1

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