The impact of delineating guideline training on the hippocampal delineation / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the differences in the hippocampal delineation among different radiologists and to evaluate the impact of the delineating guideline training upon improving the accuracy of target area.Methods In this prospective study,20 patients scheduled to receive whole brain radiation therapy were selected.Before and after the delineating guideline training,three physicians from Department of Radiation Oncology delineated the hippocampal targets three times for each patient.One physician from Department of Imaging Diagnosis delivered the delineating guideline training and delineated the hippocampus of 20 patients as the standard target area.The delineating targets before and after the training were statistically compared among different physicians.Results The conformity indexes with the standard target of three physicians before and after the training were 0.66±0.04 and 0.77±0.02,0.62±0.04 and 0.76± 0.02,0.49±0.05 and 0.74±0.04,respectively.The conformity indexes were all statistically increased after the training (all P＜ 0.05).The inter-observer variability significantly differed among different physicians before and after training (all P＜0.05).The coefficient of variance of hippocampal volume before and after training were 0.16±0.06 and 0.08±0.04 with statistical significance (all P＜0.05).Compared with all targets before training,the consistency of each physician was significantly improved after training (all P＜0.05).Conclusion Hippocampal delineation guideline training can improve the accuracy of delineation.