Variation in Whether Radiologists Recommend Follow-up Imaging

I've noticed that radiologists seem to vary in their propensity to recommend additional imaging studies in their reports. A retrospective study from a Boston teaching hospital and its outpatient network confirms my anecdotal impression.

Researchers analyzed 318,000 radiology reports to assess variability in follow-up imaging recommendations; imaging procedures for which follow-up recommendations are standard (e.g., mammography, obstetric ultrasound) were excluded. This hospital's radiology department has subspecialty divisions, each with 8 to 14 radiologists. Within each division, the proportion of reports with recommendations for follow-up imaging ranged as follows across individual radiologists:

• Abdomen, 3% to 11%

• Chest, 1% to 2%

• Cancer insti…