Abstract
ObjectivesThe need of a standardized reporting scheme and language, in imaging of COVID-19 pneumonia, has been welcomed by major scientific societies. The aim of the study was to build the reporting scheme of chest CT in COVID-19 pneumonia.MethodsA team of experts, of the Italian Society of Medical and Interventional Radiology (SIRM), has been recruited to compose a consensus panel. They used a modified Delphi process to build a reporting scheme and expressed a level of agreement for each section of the report. To measure the internal consistency of the panelist ratings for each section of the report, a quality analysis based on the average inter-item correlation was performed with Cronbach’s alpha (Cα) correlation coefficient.ResultsThe overall mean score of the experts and the sum of score were 3.1 (std.dev. ± 0.11) and 122 in the second round, and improved to 3.75 (std.dev. ± 0.40) and 154 in the third round. The Cronbach’s alpha (Cα) correlation coefficient was 0.741 (acceptable) in the second round and improved to 0.789 in the third round. The final report was built in the management of radiology report template (MRRT) and includes n = 4 items in the procedure information, n = 5 items in the clinical information, n = 16 in the findings, and n = 3 in the impression, with overall 28 items.ConclusionsThe proposed structured report could be of help both for expert radiologists and for the less experienced who are faced with the management of these patients. The structured report is conceived as a guideline, to recommend the key items/findings of chest CT in COVID-19 pneumonia.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus (SARS-cov-2) infection outbreak, rapidly spreading from Wuhan City (Hubei Province, China) to extra continental countries since December 2019, has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020
Materials and methods In 2018, in adherence with the RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) and European Society of Radiology (ESR) structured reporting initiative, Italian Society of Medical and Interventional Radiology (SIRM) launched the Italian initiative aimed at creating a repository of structured reports, available to its members, to be used in clinical practice [15, 16]
Pinto dos Santos et al converted in templates the free text reports of 521 consecutive cases which had been referred to the radiology department for computed tomography (CT) pulmonary angiography with suspected pulmonary embolism [29]
Summary
The novel coronavirus (SARS-cov-2) infection outbreak, rapidly spreading from Wuhan City (Hubei Province, China) to extra continental countries since December 2019, has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. At the time of this writing, Italy is the eleventh country in the world by number of confirmed cases and the fourth by number of deaths [2, 3]. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the radiology department to re-organize their logistic and workload, giving priority to the management of these patients. Several major radiological scientific societies have published guidelines on the diagnostic work-up of suspected or ascertained COVID-19 patients, suggesting the use of imaging on the basis of the clinical findings [5,6,7]
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