Premium
A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY INTO THE EFFECTS OF OPERATOR EXPERIENCE ON THE ACCURACY OF ULTRASOUND IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF GASTRIC NEOPLASIA IN DOGS
Author(s) -
Easton Suzanne
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
veterinary radiology and ultrasound
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.541
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1740-8261
pISSN - 1058-8183
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-8261.2001.tb00903.x
Subject(s) - medicine , histopathology , ultrasound , diagnostic accuracy , radiology , gastroenterology , pathology
The accuracy of three diagnostic techniques in two separate time periods was examined. In the first time period, 18 dogs were referred to the University of Bristol with signs suggestive of gastric neoplasia. Of these 18 dogs, 7 had a positive diagnosis of gastric neoplasia from histopathology samples (38% prevalence). The sensitivity of ultrasound was found to be 42.9% with a specificity of 63.6%. A year later the study was repeated with 40 cases referred for investigation. Of these 40 dogs, 16 had a positive histopathologic diagnosis of gastric neoplasia (40% prevalence). At this time the sensitivity of ultrasound had increased to 81.3% and the specificity had increased to 70.8%. The increase in sensitivity was attributed to an increase in operator experience in the performance of the ultrasound examination. This improvement in sensitivity and experience resulted in a greater accuracy at detecting the presence of gastric neoplasia.