Dissatisfaction among referring physicians with the variation and ambiguity that can occur in traditional radiology reports has led to the emerging use of structured reporting in recent years. Numerous studies in the literature have directly compared structured and unstructured reports for specific clinical questions, but in their study, the researchers led by presenter Dr. Jan Vosshenrich of the University Hospital Basel sought to explore the effects of structured reporting on a macroscopic level to investigate overall trends in language patterns.
"Structured reporting is strongly advertised in our department and plays a prominent role both in clinical routine as well as in research projects," Vosshenrich told AuntMinnie.com. "Several of our subspecialty sections [have used] 100% structured reports since early 2016, providing us with a vast amount of data for analysis. Apart from introducing template-based structured reporting, strong emphasis was placed on a clear, distinct, factual reporting language without elements of hedging or unnecessary uncertainty."
By analyzing their reports, the researchers found that combining structured reporting with a distinct reporting culture promotes a more unified, standardized radiology reporting vocabulary, according to Vosshenrich.
The increase in reporting standardization also is beneficial in terms of readability, comparability, and comprehensibility on single-patient, cohort, and overall levels, he added.
Structured and, hence, standardized reporting paves the way for big-data analysis and natural language processing in radiology to gain new insights into the description of normal and pathologic conditions, Vosshenrich noted.
"Ultimately, even the creation of predictive algorithms, as we are accustomed to from search engines and messaging services, suggesting organ- or disease-specific terms to the radiologist when reporting an imaging study, is now a realistic scenario," he said.
