[Intl_DxMedPhys] CT Head vs CT Head Brain in ACR DIR?

[Andrew LaBella]

Hi all

Apologies if this has come up before on this listserv. I'm looking through
the ACR DIR Registry Statistics data for calendar year 2024, and noticed
that the CT Head data (classified by Exam Short Name) has very different
percentiles for CT Head exams vs. CT Head Brain exams (despite them being
functionally the same from my understanding for the sake of mapping):




This was not the case for the previous ACR Registry Statistics data pull I
had, as the benchmarks were much more in line with each other (I believe
below stats are for 2022 or 2023, I do not have the raw data pull with more
detailed stats, only the CTDI benchmarks. I'm not able to pull from ACR DIR
for previous years any more to confirm, as comparison stats are only
available for 2024 onward. See below what I have):




The highest sample size for 2024 are available for the CT HEAD BRAIN WO
IVCON exam short name, so I'm most inclined to use that for CT Head
protocol benchmarking for my facilities. But I've traditionally used CT
HEAD WO IVCON (and that is mostly what I see routine heads assigned as on
RDIMs).

I'm wondering if this is a well-known change, or on the ACR's radar? It
seems there is a wide disagreement in how facilities assign exams to CT
HEAD WO IVCON, especially with how wide the range is in the percentiles.
The CTDI values for CT HEAD WO IVCON look more like what I would see for,
say, a facial bone scan.

Curious to hear others' thoughts and experiences with this.

Best,

Andy LaBella
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