Purpose or Case Report: Background Leg length discrepancy studies are labor intensive, yet cognitively simple, studies that represent inefficient use of the pediatric radiologists’ time and expertise.
Objective The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that measuring and calculating leg length discrepancies do not require radiologist expertise. We hypothesized that radiology technologists could be trained to quantify leg length discrepancies and that their performance would be statistically equivalent to that of board-certified, fellowship trained pediatric radiologists.
Methods & Materials: Materials and methods We recruited 4 radiology technologists to participate in a 30-minute tutorial and supervised case-based practice session. Subsequently, they independently measured and calculated leg length discrepancies on 10 unknown cases. Their performance was compared to the radiologists’ reports as the reference standard. After one week, the technologists repeated their measurements on the same cases, which were resorted to simulate new cases. Intraclass correlation analyses measured agreement of the measurements were performed with the reference standard and those obtained one week later.
Results: Results Among the 4 technologists, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between session 1 and the reference standard was 0.93 (p<0.001). The ICC between session 2 and the reference standard was 0.92 (p<0.001). The ICC between session 1 and session 2 was 0.96 (p<0.001). Given a high ICC between session 1 and session 2, the technologists’ measurements were averaged and a difference score computed for the average measurements and reference standard. Across raters, the range of difference values (absolute value) ranged from 0 to 1.05 cm (mean difference = 0.39 cm).
Conclusions: Conclusion Radiology technologists can be rapidly trained to measure and calculate leg length discrepancies as accurately as board-certified pediatric radiologists. Delegation of this time-consuming task to technologists or radiology assistants will permit radiologists to spend time on more cognitively demanding studies requiring subspecialty training.