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  • Title: Liver trauma diagnosis with contrast-enhanced ultrasound: interobserver variability between radiologist and emergency physician in an animal study.
    Author: You JS, Chung YE, Lee HJ, Chung SP, Park I, Kim MJ, Park MS, Lim JS, Choi JY, Kim S, Kim KW.
    Journal: Am J Emerg Med; 2012 Sep; 30(7):1229-34. PubMed ID: 21871760.
    Abstract:
    OBJECTIVE: The purpose of our study was to evaluate interobserver variability between the radiologist and emergency physician in detecting blunt liver trauma by conventional and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (US) (CEUS). METHODS: We created 20 sites of blunt liver trauma in rabbits and performed conventional US and CEUS on the animals. A radiologist and an emergency physician independently evaluated the degree of liver trauma. Using contrast-enhanced computed tomography as a reference standard, the diagnostic performance of US and CEUS was calculated. Interobserver variability between radiologist and emergency physician was compared before and after contrast enhancement of US. RESULTS: Overall sensitivity and specificity for detecting liver trauma on conventional US, regardless of the degree of trauma, were 61.1% and 100% for the radiologist and 50% and 100% for the emergency physician. On CEUS, the sensitivity and specificity were 94.4% and 100% for both the radiologist and emergency physician. The interobserver agreement between emergency physician and radiologist increased from 0.867 to 0.955 after contrast enhancement on US. CONCLUSIONS: Contrast-enhanced US may permit a more accurate diagnosis for liver trauma than conventional US by both the radiologist and emergency physician. Contrast-enhanced US may also reduce interobserver variability for this diagnosis.
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