There were high degrees of inter- and intraobserver agreement using the "Guidelines for diagnostic thyroid ultrasonography," of the TSGKSNRHNR in the description and categorization of thyroid nodules.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the interobserver variability and performance in the interpretation of ultrasonographic (US) findings of thyroid nodules.Materials and Methods72 malignant nodules and 61 benign nodules were enrolled as part of this study. Five faculty radiologists and four residents independently performed a retrospective analysis of the US images. The observers received one training session after the first interpretation and then performed a secondary interpretation. Agreement was analyzed by Cohen's kappa statistic. Degree of performance was analyzed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.ResultsAgreement between the faculties was fair-to-good for all criteria; however, between residents, agreement was poor-to-fair. The area under the ROC curves was 0.72, 0.62, and 0.60 for the faculties, senior residents, and junior residents, respectively. There was a significant difference in performance between the faculties and the residents (p < 0.05). There was a significant increase in the agreement for some criteria in the faculties and the senior residents after the training session, but no significant increase in the junior residents.ConclusionIndependent reporting of thyroid US performed by residents is undesirable. A continuous and specialized resident training is essential to enhance the degree of agreement and performance.

ObjectiveTo compare the detection performance of the automated whole breast ultrasound (AWUS) with that of the hand-held breast ultrasound (HHUS) and to evaluate the interobserver variability in the interpretation of the AWUS.Materials and MethodsAWUS was performed in 38 breast cancer patients. A total of 66 lesions were included: 38 breast cancers, 12 additional malignancies and 16 benign lesions. Three breast radiologists independently reviewed the AWUS data and analyzed the breast lesions according to the BI-RADS classification.ResultsThe detection rate of malignancies was 98.0% for HHUS and 90.0%, 88.0% and 96.0% for the three readers of the AWUS. The sensitivity and the specificity were 98.0% and 62.5% in HHUS, 90.0% and 87.5% for reader 1, 88.0% and 81.3% for reader 2, and 96.0% and 93.8% for reader 3, in AWUS. There was no significant difference in the radiologists' detection performance, sensitivity and specificity (p > 0.05) between the two modalities. The interobserver agreement was fair to good for the ultrasonographic features, categorization, size, and the location of breast masses.ConclusionAWUS is thought to be useful for detecting breast lesions. In comparison with HHUS, AWUS shows no significant difference in the detection rate, sensitivity and the specificity, with high degrees of interobserver agreement.

Elasticity score showed a higher level of interobserver agreement for the diagnosis of breast lesions than BI-RADS lexicons and final category.