Side discrepancy errors in radiology reports do occur, so radiologists, referring physicians, and patients should communicate to prevent errors in clinical management, according to a new study.
That conclusion comes from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who assessed instances when the side of the lesion was incorrectly noted in one or more sections of the radiology report. Study results were published in the May 2009 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
Lead author Dr. Minal Jagtiani Sangwaiya noted that while the incidence of side discrepancy errors is very small, most reports describing medical errors are self reports or surveys, and they almost certainly underestimate the incidence, perhaps by a factor of 20 or more.
In the more than 1 million radiology reports analyzed by the researchers, 88 side discrepancy errors were reported, with 80% of those errors rated as clinically important.
The errors in mislabeling the side of the lesion were almost twice as frequent in female patients as in males. Mammography and radiography, followed by MRI and ultrasound, were the most commonly reported techniques with mislabeling of the lesion side.
The errors noted in the study included those that had been corrected. The study did not account for unrecognized errors.
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