Satisfaction of search in the detection of plain-film abnormalities in abdominal contrast studies.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES

Satisfaction of search (SOS) occurs when a lesion is "missed" after detecting another lesion in the same radiograph. The authors investigated the SOS effect in abdominal contrast studies.

METHODS

The authors measured detection of 23 plain film abnormalities in 43 patients who had plain film and contrast examinations. Each plain-film and contrast study was examined independently by 10 radiologists in two sessions, with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve areas estimated with the computer program RSCORE-J (University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA) for each condition.

RESULTS

Observers more often missed plain film abnormalities present on contrast studies but also made fewer false-positive (FP) responses. There was no change in ROC area, but decision criteria grew more conservative.

CONCLUSIONS

The reduction of detecting plain-film abnormalities in contrast examinations differs from the SOS effect of other imaging studies. The reduction in true-positive (TP) and false-positive (FP) rates suggests that a different cause may underlie these misses.