A national audit of radiology practice in cancer multidisciplinary team meetings

A national audit reviewing compliance of imaging departments with the Royal College of Radiologist (RCR) standards for cancer multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTMs).

The audit consisted of a generic and subspecialty component completed for breast, colorectal, and lung cancer MDTMs.

The study achieved the highest response from a RCR national audit with 145/191 (76%) hospitals responding. Compliance with the RCR standards was suboptimal, particularly relating to MDTM attendance, documentation, and reviewing MDTM imaging. Comprehensive radiology MDTM attendance occurred in 52-65%, a supplementary report denoting staging/treatment plans happened in 15-26%, and late additions were discussed frequently without prior review of imaging (44-77%). Contributing factors maybe 13% of radiologists had no programmed activity for MDTMs in their job plan and a perceived negative impact of increasing MDTM referrals (51%). Adjuncts to improve MDTM workload, such as treatment pathways/algorithms (breast/colorectal 54%) and pro-forma (43-50%), were poorly implemented. Discrepancies with the original imaging report highlighted at MDTMs were well documented (92-94%) and frequently presented at discrepancy meetings (70-81%). Learning from involvement in MDTM was well communicated with 76-84% providing peer feedback.

Radiologists are unable to comprehensively attain the RCR MDTM standards on providing and documenting a specialist opinion on the imaging. Increasing referrals to the MDTM appears the predominant factor and differentiating complex cases that benefit from MDTM discussion from those that can be managed via treatment pathways is required. Improved utilisation of pre-MDTMs/pro-forma and information technology in MDTMs may further aid radiologists to provide consistent high-quality contribution towards MDTMs.