• P N Cascade, E A Kazerooni, B H Gross, L E Quint, T M Silver, R A Bowerman, P G Pernicano, and A Gebremariam.
• Department of Radiology, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor 48109-0326, USA.
• Acad Radiol. 2001 Apr 1; 8 (4): 315-21.

Rationale And ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to determine relative rates of missed diagnoses for radiologists as a measure of competence in interpreting chest radiographs.Materials And MethodsCases involving differing interpretations of chest radiographs were collected from January 1994 through December 1999 by faculty (chest and nonchest radiology specialists) in an academic radiology department. A quarterly peer-review process designated cases months after the fact, and anonymously, as no miss or as class I (nondiagnosable), class II (very difficult diagnosis), class III (should be diagnosed most of time), or class IV (should almost always be diagnosed) missed diagnoses. The rates and classes of missed diagnoses were compared among chest faculty and for the nonchest radiology specialists as a group.ResultsChest radiologists read 184,977 studies, and nonchest radiologists read 300,684 studies. Of these, 243 missed diagnoses were classified (classes I and II, 184 cases; class III, 50; and class IV, nine). No difference was detected in the rate of class III and IV misses among chest faculty, but nonchest faculty had significantly more class III (P = .022) and class IV misses (P = .016).ConclusionRandom sampling of differing interpretations can yield a relative rate of missed diagnoses for radiologists. No difference was detected in clinically important misses (ie, classes III and IV) among chest radiologists, but a statistically significantly higher rate of seemingly obvious misdiagnoses was found for nonchest specialty radiologists. Potential biases may have influenced this analysis, including disease prevalence, sampling, clinical factors, observer variability, and truth-in-diagnosis.

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