Comparison of conventional and structured report in the evaluation of Crohn’s disease through enterography

Abstract

ContextThere is an increasing interest in the standardization of the evaluation of imaging exams, especially enterography in Crohn’s disease. ObjectiveTo compare the quality of the conventional report with the structured report in computed tomography enterography in Crohn’s disease. MethodNine CT enterographies of patients with Crohn’s disease with conventional reports were performed; after the standardization of the structured report by the radiology department of a university hospital that is a reference in the care of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases, the same exams were reevaluated, and new reports were issued, without the radiologists having access to the previous report; the 18 reports underwent evaluation of five specialists in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, resulting in 90 analyses of the report; the specialists evaluated the following criteria: clarity of the information of the report, ease in characterizing the extension of the disease, ease in defining the presence of complications, usefulness of the exam to define the behavior, and ease in defining the activity of the disease, with the use of a 0–10 score. The statistical analysis was perfrmed with Wilcoxon’s non-parametric test, considering a significance level of 5%. ResultsThe mean scores assigned to the exam reports, using both reports (unstructured and structured) ranged from 7.98 to 9.16; however, the scores of the structured reports were significantly higher (p < 0.003). ConclusionIn the specialists’ evaluation, the structured report was shown to be of better quality than the unstructured one in the CT enterography of patients with Crohn’s Disease.