• Samuel G Campbell, Daphne D Murray, Ammar Hawass, David Urquhart, Stacy Ackroyd-Stolarz, and David Maxwell.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre, Dalhousie University, 1796 Summer Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. samuel.campbell@cdha.nshealth.ca
• Emerg Radiol. 2005 Jun 1; 11 (4): 242-6.

AbstractTo evaluate the level of concurrence between radiologist reports and the diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in patients discharged from an emergency department (ED), a retrospective chart audit of patients discharged with a diagnosis of 'pneumonia' or 'possible pneumonia' from the ED during a 2-year period was conducted. Emergency physician (EP) and radiology report (RR) diagnoses were categorized as 'pneumonia', 'possible pneumonia', 'non-pneumonia' and 'normal', and categories from each were compared. 815 charts were analyzed. Of 671 EP diagnoses of 'pneumonia', 304 (45.3%) RR's reported 'pneumonia' and 82 (12.2%), 'possible pneumonia'. Of 815 EP diagnoses of 'pneumonia' or 'possible pneumonia', 426 (52.3%) RRs were in agreement, while 216(26.5%) were of diagnoses other than pneumonia and 173 (21.1%) were read as normal. EPs and radiologists frequently disagree on whether a patient has pneumonia or not. Perhaps it is time to revisit the gold standard status of plain chest X-ray.

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