Reader characteristics linked to detection of ...

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performance in chest radiology using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and jackknife free response ... certified radiologists including six chest specialists.
Reader characteristics linked to detection of pulmonary nodules on radiographs: ROC vs JAFROC analyses of performance. Akshay Kohli, John W. Robinson, John Ryan, Mark F. McEntee, Patrick C. Brennan. Department of Medical Radiation Sciences, The University of Sydney, Australia.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore whether reader characteristics are linked to heightened levels of diagnostic performance in chest radiology using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and jackknife free response ROC (JAFROC) methodologies. A set of 40 postero-anterior chest radiographs was developed, of which 20 were abnormal containing one or more simulated nodules, of varying subtlety. Images were independently reviewed by 12 boardcertified radiologists including six chest specialists. The observer performance was measured in terms of ROC and JAFROC scores. For the ROC analysis, readers were asked to rate their degree of suspicion for the presence of nodules by using a confidence rating scale (1-6). JAFROC analysis required the readers to locate and rate as many suspicious areas as they wished using the same scale and resultant data were used to generate Az and FOM scores for ROC and JAFROC analyses respectively. Using Pearson methods, scores of performance were correlated with 7 reader characteristics recorded using a questionnaire. JAFROC analysis showed that improved reader performance was significantly (p≤0.05) linked with chest specialty (p