The Effect of a Technical Quality Assessment of Hip-Extended Radiographs on Interobserver Agreements in the Diagnosis of Canine Hip Dysplasia.
Geert E. C. Verhoeven, Ruth R Fortrie, Luc Duchateau, et al.
Veterinary radiology & ultrasound : the official journal of the American College of Veterinary Radiology and the International Veterinary Radiology Association, Vol. 51, No. 5, pp. 498-503, 2010
Abstract
Experienced and inexperienced observers evaluated the assessability of 50 radiographs (25 dogs) and determined the hip status (dysplasia / nondysplasia and final scoring according Federation Cynologique Internationale [FCI]-criteria) individually. A radiographic technical quality assessment was performed in a separate reading session. Interobserver agreement in determining dysplasia / nondysplasia and FCI-scoring did not significantly increase with the increasing quality of a radiograph, irrespective whether these observers are experienced or not.There was a significant agreement between the technical quality assessment and assessability (P<0.0005). Despite the effort to objectify radiographic quality and to present high-quality radiographs to observers, interobserver agreement on dysplasia / nondysplasia and final scoring, remains low, even in the experienced group. Although increased radiographic quality narrows the range of scoring, the range remains unacceptably high.