Open AccessReliability and reproducibility of interpretation of 99m technetium pyrophosphate myocardial scintigrams
Author(s) -
Mason J. W.,
Myers R. W.,
Goris M. L.,
Doherty P.,
Alderman E. L.,
Kriss J. P.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
clinical cardiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.263
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1932-8737
pISSN - 0160-9289
DOI - 10.1002/clc.4960020610
Subject(s) - reproducibility , pyrophosphate , nuclear medicine , medicine , technetium , reliability (semiconductor) , scintigraphy , nuclear magnetic resonance , physics , mathematics , statistics , power (physics) , quantum mechanics , enzyme
The interpretations of 156 99m technetium pyrophosphate myocardial scintigrams by four observers were analyzed in order to determine the reliability and reproducibility of the subjective process of reading scintigrams. The scintigrams were scored on an integral scale from 0 to 4, depending upon the degree of myocardial radionuclide accumulation, and the site and nature of uptake were specified. Exact agreement upon score was generally poor but approximate concurrence of interpretation was good (90.4 and 92.5% inter‐ and intra‐observer agreement, respectively). There was somewhat less agreement on scintigrams with the higher scores of 3 and 4 (83.3 and 78.0%, respectively). A high level of concurrence upon the differentiation between diffuse and localized uptake, and upon the site of uptake, was found. We conclude that only approximate rather than exact agreement of individual readers' interpretations can be expected in this subjective technique, that scintigrams with higher degrees of radionuclide accumulation produce slightly greater observer disagreement, and that variability of interpretation could account for some of the diagnostic inaccuracy of 99m technetium pyrophosphate myocardial scintigraphy.