Up to 20% of FDG PET/CT scans are misread, say most referring docs

More than half of surveyed referring physicians said that F-18 FDG PET/CT scans were being clinically misinterpreted in somewhere between 5 percent and 20 percent of cases, according to a study published Nov. 7 in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

Dimitrios Karantanis, MD, PhD, from the Ahmanson Translational Imaging Division in the department of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues distributed an 11-question survey to 662 referring physicians gaining insight about the interpretation of oncologic F-18 PET/CT scans and the circumstances surrounding their misinterpretation.

Of the surveyed physicians, 7.4 percent (49) were radiation oncologists, 14.5 percent were hematologists (96), 33.8 percent were surgeons (224), 36.1 percent were oncologists (239) and 8.2 percent were from other disciplines.

Perceived misinterpretation via physician surveys were in a range of 5 percent to 20 percent for the majority of responders, or 59.3 percent of those surveyed. Only 20.8 percent of responders said their FDG PET/CT misinterpretation level was under 5 percent.

“Although the perceived oncologic F-18 FDG PET/CT misinterpretation rates and their consequences appear to be within a generally accepted range, there is a clear need for improvement,” wrote Karantanis et al.

Physicians were much more apt to claim overinterpretation of FDG PET/CT studies, 68.9 percent, rather than underinterpretation, 8.7 percent. The most noted cause of misinterpretation was limited experience and not knowing enough about a patient’s history.

Those surveyed were given a multiple-choice of possible aids to pick that best described what they thought would improve clinical interpretation and 59.8 percent of responders said multidisciplinary meetings would help, while 37.4 percent said provision of adequate history would provide better results.