Misdiagnosis with a Computerized Tomography (CT) Scan Essay
Misdiagnosis with a Computerized Tomography (CT) Scan Essay
CT scan has transformed diagnostic decision-making and has various advantages over other imaging methods. It has led to better cancer diagnosis and treatment, better surgery, better treatment for patients with injury and major trauma, and improved treatment of stroke and cardiac conditions. Nevertheless, CT scan has been associated with false-positive incidental findings that lead to misdiagnosis (Itri et al., 2018). This contributes to an expensive and potentially harmful cascade of additional diagnostic tests with no medical benefit.
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The rate of misdiagnosis with CT scans varies by type of imaging. Studies show that Chest CT has been associated with incidental findings needing further evaluation in up to 41.5% of tests. Besides, after two scans for lung cancer screening using a CT scan, one in three patients had a false-positive incidental finding, and one in 15 had to undergo surgical or invasive procedures (Tarkiainen et al., 2021). Among trauma patients, about 30% of abdominal CT scans and 6% of head CT scans revealed incidental findings that resulted in a recommendation for further tests. Generally, it is projected that one in four CT scan exams, especially those of the abdomen and chest, will result in a false-positive finding.
The leading factor of misdiagnosis with CT scans is misinterpretation. A wrong-interpreted CT scan was the factor of misdiagnosis in more than one out of three patient injury incidents. Tarkiainen et al. (2021) found that misinterpretation of tests accounted for 78% of medical malpractice lawsuits. Another factor that contributes to misdiagnosis is improperly maintained CT scanners which can lead to failure to identify tumors or affect the films produced reading to misinterpretation. The radiologist can fail to identify a tumor on a CT scan resulting in a grave delay in treatment (Itri et al., 2018). Therefore, physicians should not rely merely on the radiologist’s report but should review the scan to ensure there are no misinterpretations that may result in treatment errors.
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References
Itri, J. N., Tappouni, R. R., McEachern, R. O., Pesch, A. J., & Patel, S. H. (2018). Fundamentals of diagnostic error in imaging. Radiographics, 38(6), 1845-1865. https://doi.org/10.1148/rg.2018180021
Tarkiainen, T., Turpeinen, M., Haapea, M., Liukkonen, E., & Niinimäki, J. (2021). Investigating errors in medical imaging: medical malpractice cases in Finland. Insights into imaging, 12(1), 86. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13244-021-01011-8
What are some common misdiagnoses wth a computerized tomography (CT) s
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