CT of acute appendicitis: can diagnostic accuracy serve as a practical performance metric for readers specialized in abdominal imaging?

Purpose: To investigate diagnostic accuracy for acute appendicitis at computed tomography (CT) as a performance metric for radiologists specialized in abdominal imaging.
Materials and Methods: We retrospectively identified six attending abdominal imagers who each independently interpreted over 100 CT studies for suspected acute appendicitis.
Results: The mean number of studies per reader was 311 (range, 129-386). Mean reader diagnostic accuracy was 95.0% (range, 91.4-97.1%). Only one had a diagnostic accuracy (91.4%) that was significantly lower than all others.
Conclusion: Diagnostic accuracy for acute appendicitis at CT may be an impractical performance metric for radiologists specialized in abdominal imaging.
(© 2014.)