Identifying enthesitis in the sacroiliac joints in patients with axial spondyloarthritis by readers of varying experience: impact of the learning progress

Abstract

Abstract Background This study aimed to investigate the accuracy of identifying enthesitis along with other inflammatory lesions and structural lesions on the MRI of the sacroiliac joints (SIJ) by readers of varying experience and how training sessions and workshops could help improve the accuracy. Methods A total of 224 patients with clinical diagnosis of axial spondyloarthritis who underwent SIJ MRI examinations were retrospectively included in this study. Three readers with 5 years, 3 years and 1 year of experience in musculoskeletal imaging were invited to review the SIJ MRI images independently, while the imaging reports of a senior radiologist (> 10 years’ experience) were used as reference. After the first round of image review, a training session and a workshop on the imaging of SIJ in spondyloarthritis were held and the three readers were asked to review the images in the second round. We calculated the accuracy of identifying inflammatory and structural lesions of the three readers as well as the intra-reader agreement. Results Enthesitis could be observed in 52.23% of the axial spondyloarthritis patients, while 81.58% of the patients with enthesitis were accompanied with bone marrow edema. All the three readers showed better accuracy at identifying structural lesions than inflammatory lesions. In the first round of image review, the three readers only correctly identified 15.07%, 2.94% and 0.74% of the enthesitis sites. After the training session and workshop, the accuracy rose to 61.03%, 39.34% and 20.22%. The intra-reader agreement of enthesitis calculated as Cohen’s kappa was 0.23, 0.034 and 0.014, respectively. Conclusion Readers with less experience in musculoskeletal imaging showed lower accuracy of identifying inflammatory lesions, notably enthesitis. Training sessions and workshops could help improve the diagnostic accuracy of the junior readers.