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Satisfaction of search in the detection of plain-film abnormalities in abdominal contrast studies
E A Franken1, K S Berbaum, C H Lu
1Department of Radiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City.
Rationale And Objectives:
Satisfaction of search (SOS) occurs when a lesion is "missed" after detecting another lesion in the same radiograph. The authors investigated the SOS effect in abdominal contrast studies.
Methods:
The authors measured detection of 23 plain film abnormalities in 43 patients who had plain film and contrast examinations. Each plain-film and contrast study was examined independently by 10 radiologists in two sessions, with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve areas estimated with the computer program RSCORE-J (University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA) for each condition.
Results:
Observers more often missed plain film abnormalities present on contrast studies but also made fewer false-positive (FP) responses. There was no change in ROC area, but decision criteria grew more conservative.
Conclusions:
The reduction of detecting plain-film abnormalities in contrast examinations differs from the SOS effect of other imaging studies. The reduction in true-positive (TP) and false-positive (FP) rates suggests that a different cause may underlie these misses.