TY - JOUR
T1 - Learning curves in radiological reporting of whole-body MRI in plasma cell disease
T2 - a retrospective study
AU - Negroni, Davide
AU - Cassarà, Alessia
AU - Trisoglio, Alessandra
AU - Soligo, Eleonora
AU - Berardo, Sara
AU - Carriero, Alessandro
AU - Stecco, Alessandro
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/11
Y1 - 2021/11
N2 - Background: The plasma cell disease is been studying by the whole-body MRI technology. However, the time requested to learn this radiological technique is unknown. Purpose: To esteem, quantitatively and qualitatively, the essential time to learn the whole-body MRI diffusion-weighted imaging with background body signal suppression in patients with plasma cell disease. Materials and methods: Between January 2015 and February 2017, three readers in-training with different levels of experience examined the anonymised and randomised whole-body MRI images of 52 patients with a diagnosis of plasma cell disease and analysed their morphological (T1w, T2w with and without fat suppression) and functional sequences. Reports of an expert radiologist were considered the standard of reference. Images were analysed in two sessions, during which each reader was timed. Readers reported the number of segments with lesions and staged the disease using the Durie–Salmon PLUS staging system. Weighted Cohen’s ĸ and Z-test were used to compare the trainees’ reports with those of the expert radiologist, and learning curves were drawn up to show changes between the two sessions. Results: Weighted Cohen’s ĸ of number of lesioned segments increased from 0.536 ± 0.123 to 0.831 ± 0.129 (Prob > Z under 0.005), thus approaching the goal of ĸ > 0.8. Trainees reached the level of experienced radiologist in terms of time by the 33rd patient. Agreement concerning the Durie–Salmon PLUS increased from 0.536 ± 0.123 to 0.831 ± 0.129 (Prob > Z under 0.005). Conclusions: The findings of this study demonstrate that whole-body MRI with DWIBS can be learned in about 80 reports and leads to a high level of inter-observer concordance when using the Durie–Salmon PLUS staging system.
AB - Background: The plasma cell disease is been studying by the whole-body MRI technology. However, the time requested to learn this radiological technique is unknown. Purpose: To esteem, quantitatively and qualitatively, the essential time to learn the whole-body MRI diffusion-weighted imaging with background body signal suppression in patients with plasma cell disease. Materials and methods: Between January 2015 and February 2017, three readers in-training with different levels of experience examined the anonymised and randomised whole-body MRI images of 52 patients with a diagnosis of plasma cell disease and analysed their morphological (T1w, T2w with and without fat suppression) and functional sequences. Reports of an expert radiologist were considered the standard of reference. Images were analysed in two sessions, during which each reader was timed. Readers reported the number of segments with lesions and staged the disease using the Durie–Salmon PLUS staging system. Weighted Cohen’s ĸ and Z-test were used to compare the trainees’ reports with those of the expert radiologist, and learning curves were drawn up to show changes between the two sessions. Results: Weighted Cohen’s ĸ of number of lesioned segments increased from 0.536 ± 0.123 to 0.831 ± 0.129 (Prob > Z under 0.005), thus approaching the goal of ĸ > 0.8. Trainees reached the level of experienced radiologist in terms of time by the 33rd patient. Agreement concerning the Durie–Salmon PLUS increased from 0.536 ± 0.123 to 0.831 ± 0.129 (Prob > Z under 0.005). Conclusions: The findings of this study demonstrate that whole-body MRI with DWIBS can be learned in about 80 reports and leads to a high level of inter-observer concordance when using the Durie–Salmon PLUS staging system.
KW - Durie–Salmon PLUS
KW - Inter-observer agreement
KW - Learning curves
KW - Plasma cell disease
KW - Whole-body MRI
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85111708818&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11547-021-01391-3
DO - 10.1007/s11547-021-01391-3
M3 - Article
SN - 0033-8362
VL - 126
SP - 1451
EP - 1459
JO - Radiologia Medica
JF - Radiologia Medica
IS - 11
ER -