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CT of acute appendicitis: can diagnostic accuracy serve as a practical performance metric for readers specialized in
Lisa L Chu1, Emily M Webb, Joseph W Stengel
1Department of Radiology University of California, San Francisco, 505 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0628.
Purpose:
To investigate diagnostic accuracy for acute appendicitis at computed tomography (CT) as a performance metric for radiologists specialized in abdominal imaging.
Materials And Methods:
We retrospectively identified six attending abdominal imagers who each independently interpreted over 100 CT studies for suspected acute appendicitis.
Results:
The mean number of studies per reader was 311 (range, 129-386). Mean reader diagnostic accuracy was 95.0% (range, 91.4-97.1%). Only one had a diagnostic accuracy (91.4%) that was significantly lower than all others.
Conclusion:
Diagnostic accuracy for acute appendicitis at CT may be an impractical performance metric for radiologists specialized in abdominal imaging.
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