Quality Assessment of Hepatic Ultrasound Images Examined After a Medical Check-up

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: This study was designed to determine problems associated with liver ultrasonography for healthy individuals after a medical examination by the evaluation of sonographic images. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 353 patients randomly selected from 341 institutions underwent liver ultrasonography. Among the patients, 14 patients were excluded from the study as they possessed digital images that were not accesible (n = 10) or underwent ultrasonography (n = 4) that did not involve the liver. Two experts each with a ten-year experience in the interpretation of ultrasonography analyzed the images with consensus based on the assessment of liver ultrasonography established by the Korean Society of Ultrasound in Medicine. The images of 339 patients consisted of digital images (n =135), films (n = 14) and prints on paper (n = 190). RESULTS: A total of 3514 images (range, 1-39; mean number of images per patient, 10.4) were obtained from 339 patients. Of the patients, there were 232 (68.4%) patients with eight good images and 231 patients had a score greater than 60 points. The mean percent score was 64.9 for general information, 63.8 for technical information and 50.5 for a standard examination. The mean percent score for a longitudinal scan of the common bile duct and vertical scan of the left lobe were low at 20.1 and 28.9, respectively. CONCLUSION: The number of good images was sufficient at 10.4, but patient information was not exact, ultrasonographic equipment was not adjusted and a standard examination was not applied. As these findings were based on examiner ignorance and indifference, education or certification for examiners should be required.