S. Diederich et al., INTEROBSERVER VARIATION IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF BRONCHIECTASIS ON HIGH-RESOLUTION COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY, European radiology, 6(6), 1996, pp. 801-806
The purpose of our study was to determine interobserver variation in t
he analysis of high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) in the lungs
of patients with clinically suspected bronchiectasis. HRCT scans of 8
8 patients were analysed independently by oa three radiologists with v
ariable experience in thoracic radiology using a subjective scoring sy
stem To record bronchi as normal, mildly abnormal or severely ab norma
l. The presence, severity and distribution of bronchial dilatation and
branchial wall thickening were recorded. Kappa values were calculated
for assessment of interobserver agreement. Agreement between the thre
e readers was good for the detection of bronchiectasis (kappa 0.78) an
d assessment of its severity (0.68), detection of bronchial wall thick
ening (0.64) and moderately good for the assessment of its severity (0
.58) on a per-patient basis. When individual lobes were analysed, agre
ement was moderately good for the detection of abnormal bronchi (0.59)
. Agreement on the extent of abnormal bronchi using five categories wa
s only fair (0.39), but was good when differences of was one category
were ignored (0.63). Interobserver variation with HRCT in suspected br
onchiectasis appears satisfactory for comparative studies.