Concordance and Discordance Between Radiology Residents and Consultant Radiologist Interpretation Of CT Brain

Abstract

OBJECTIVES

The primary objective of this study is to assess the degree of concordance and discordance between the interpretations of computed tomography (CT) brain images by resident and consultant radiologists while emphasizing the critical significance of accurate image interpretation for informed clinical decision-making.

METHODOLOGY

The evaluation of radiology reports for CT Brain interpretation through a prospective analysis at the Radiology Department of Rehman Medical Institute over two years, from 1st October 2020 to 31st October 2022. A total of 198 patients who underwent cranial CT scans were interpreted by residents (R1, R2, R3, R4). Following this, the consultant radiologists reviewed the images and completed their reports. The reports of the residents and the consultant radiologists were then compared, and concordance was achieved when the residents’ reports were consistent with the final radiologist’s reports. The data collected were recorded in Microsoft Excel. The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 22 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY), and the kappa coefficient was used to determine the level of agreement between residents and consultants.
RESULTS
Among the 198 CT Head reports evaluated, 186 of them were in agreement with the final report of the consultant radiologist. Of the correctly diagnosed cases, R1 correctly diagnosed 46 cases, R2 correctly diagnosed 80 cases, R3 correctly diagnosed 54 cases, and R4 correctly diagnosed 6 cases. Our study achieved a percentage agreement of 93.93, with a Cohen's kappa coefficient of 0.8.
CONCLUSION
The overall concordance rate between residents and consultant radiologists was 93.93%, with a kappa coefficient 0.8. This high kappa coefficient indicates strong agreement between the two groups.