Examination of Ability to Support the Interpreting of CT Images of Emergency Transport Patients by the Radiological Technologist─About the Factors That Influences Image Interpretation Assistance─

Abstract

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced a revision of the law about the expansion of duties by the radiological technologist in team medical care in April, 2010. In that respect, the importance of reading images with support from the radiological technologist became higher. We compared the interpretation results of the radiologist with the image analysis by the radiological technologist of the CT images of emergency patients. And we checked for symptoms and diseases which were frequently overlooked by the technologists. Inexperienced radiological technologists overlooked considerably more than experienced radiological technologists. Our results showed that abdominal or chest image analysis differed more often than head scan analysis. The reasons given for the differences include a lack of clear indication for abdominal tumors, and we overlooked a lot of diseases such as pneumonia and enteritis. We also had several cases of abdominal and chest images over-reading by radiological technologists. To improve these, radiological technologists should deepen their knowledge of normal anatomy and work to improve recalling diseases that are inferred from the patient's symptoms. This will greatly improve the image interpretation support by the radiological technologists.