Abstract
Purpose The working group for gastrointestinal and abdominal imaging within the German Radiological
Society performed a nationwide online survey in order to assess the current status
regarding the awareness and application of LI-RADS, a classification for evaluation
of liver lesions in patients at risk.
Materials and Methods Using the website www.deutsches-krankenhausverzeichnis.de a list of hospitals was
generated meeting the criteria internal medicine, gastroenterology, general and visceral
surgery and radiology (n = 391). Randomly, 102 department directors were contacted,
and asked to name one consultant and one resident from their department in order to
participate in the survey. 177 potential participants were invited to fill out an
approximately 10-minute online survey in the form of 17 questions regarding the awareness
and application of LI-RADS. The results of the survey were analyzed by means of descriptive
statistics.
Results 77 participants were registered, which corresponds to a response rate of 43.5 %.
47 % of all participants were radiologists, 30 % surgeons and 23 % internal doctors/gastroenterologists,
respectively, many with more than 13 years of professional experience (37.2 %). The
majority of participants worked in a hospital with a focus (37.2 %) or a university
hospital (29.1 %). Even though the majority of participants knows about or has heard
of LI-RADS (73.2 %), only a minority uses the classification themselves (26 %) or
within the context of tumor boards (19.2 %).
Conclusion The results of our survey demonstrate that LI-RADS is relatively known in Germany,
the application however quite sparse. This is in contrast to the general desire and
endeavor for more standardized reporting in radiology.
Key points
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LI-RADS is not yet broadly implemented in clinical routine in Germany
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The sparse application is in contrast to the general desire for more standardized
reporting in radiology
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Interdisciplinary education may support the propagation and use of the LI-RDAS classification
Citation Format
Key words
LI-RADS - liver - HCC - CT - ultrasound - MR-imaging
