Interpretation of Emergency CT Scans of the Head in Trauma: Neurosurgeon vs Radiologist.

BACKGROUND

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity across all ages in all countries. Management of the patient with TBI is time critical. Emergency computed tomography (CT) scans of the head are often assessed by neurosurgeons and patient management plans are implemented before the final radiological report is released in hospitals, particularly where there is a shortage of radiologists in LMIC. The aims of this study were to identify discrepancies in the interpretation of CT scans of the head in patients with isolated head injury between the neurosurgeon and radiologist and to assess if these differences impacted patient management.

METHODS

This 6-month long prospective observational study was performed at a tertiary hospital in South Africa. The study population comprised 347 patients with isolated head injury who had a CT scan of the head performed on admission. The neurosurgeons' initial CT scan interpretation and the final radiological report were compared.

RESULTS

Out of 347 CT head scans, the neurosurgeons correctly interpreted 318 cases. Of the 29 incorrectly interpreted cases, there were 17 false negatives and 12 cases with mismatching abnormalities. The concordance rate was 91.64% (95% CI 88.73-94.55) with a kappa of 0.78. An accuracy rate of 95.33% (95% CI 92.63-97.26) was achieved by the neurosurgeon. No patient was negatively impacted by any neurosurgical error in misinterpretation.

CONCLUSIONS

In the interpretation of CT head scans in trauma, there is good neurosurgical and radiological interobserver agreement without negative patient impact. The neurosurgeons' interpretation of CT scans of the head in TBI is safe especially when radiology reports are not timeously available.