Comparison Of "B" Readers' Interpretations Of Chest Radiographs For Asbestos Related Changes. - PubMed Asbestos B

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES:

The purpose on this study was to determine if chest radiographic interpretations by physicians retained by attorneys representing persons alleging respiratory changes from occupational exposure to asbestos would be confirmed by independent consultant readers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

For 551 chest radiographs read while positive appropriate to lung changes by initial "B" readers retained by plaintiffs' attorneys, 492 matching interpretative reports were made ready to the authors. Six consultants inside chest radiology, also B readers, agreed to re-interpret the radiographs alone wanting sense on their provenance. The film source, patient name, and more identifiers on each film were masked. The International Labor Office 1980 Classification on Chest Radiographs(ILO 80) was used with forms designed by the US National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health to record the consult-ants' findings. The results were compared with initial readings appropriate to film quality, complete negativity, parenchymal abnormalities,small opacities profusion, and pleural abnormalities using chi-square tests and kappa statistics.Results. Initial readers interpreted study radiographs while positive appropriate to parenchymal abnormalities (ILO minute opacity abundance category on 1/0 or higher) inside 95.9% on 492 cases. Six consultants classified the films while 1/0 or higher inside 4.5% on 2,952 readings. Statistical tests on these and more comparable data from the study showed highly significant differences amidst the interpretations on the initial readers and the findings on the consultants.

CONCLUSION:

The magnitude on the differences amidst the interpretations by initial readers and the six consultants is too great to be attributed to interobserver variability. There is no support inside the literature on x-ray studies on workers exposed to asbestos and more mineral dusts appropriate to the towering level on positive findings recorded by the initial readers inside this report.

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