CT Sinus and facial bones reporting by radiographers: findings of an accredited postgraduate programme

Objectives
The aim of this study was to compare the observer performance of a cohort of radiographer’s in reporting Computed Tomography (CT) sinus and facial bones investigations against a reference standard and alternative comparator of summary data from peer reviewed literature.

Methods
The participants (n=6) completed a 9-month part-time distance learning training programme prior to reporting an examination bank (n=25 cases) from a retrospectively collected and anonymised DICOM archive of CT examinations with referral histories and clinical reports.

A literature search was performed to identify an additional alternative comparison reference standard from studies reporting observer performance data in CT sinus and facial bones investigations of both trauma and sinus pathology (target conditions).
The data analyses used to measure observer performance and determine differences between the cohort and the reference standards, used statistical assessment models including accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, Kappa (k), summary receiver operating characteristic curves with estimated area under the curve (AUC).

Results
The cohort of radiographer’s sensitivity was 97.5%, specificity 93.6%, accuracy 95%, with p < 0.000 and a k=0.9121 score of agreement. The mean radiographers AUC was 0.9822. The summary reported data of the alternative literature reference standard comparator was AUC 0.9533 for sinus and 0.9374 for trauma.

Conclusions
The results suggest that this cohort of radiographers at the end of a period training in CT sinus and facial bones are able to clinically report to comparable high standards.