Validating the use of report-derived Lund-MacKay scores.
BACKGROUND
The Lund-MacKay score (LMS) is the standard for communicating radiological extent of chronic rhinosinusitis in research. However, retrospective analyses are often hindered by a substantial lack of radiological data. Calculating LMS from radiologists' reports may overcome this but has not been formally validated.


METHODS
Twenty South Australian and 20 Texan patients with varying degrees of sinus disease were randomly chosen to undergo analysis. CT-derived LMSs were calculated directly by two expert rhinologists at each institution and compared with scores derived solely from accompanying radiology reports by two blinded reviewers.


RESULTS
The total LMS obtained via the expert rhinologists correlated very highly with that obtained from radiology reports (Spearman rank correlation, 0.75-0.88; p < 0.001). However, when individual sinuses were specifically analyzed, the correlation was highly variable.


CONCLUSIONS
The results show that in both South Australian and Texan tertiary rhinology centers, radiologists' reports can be reliably used to calculate the total LMS.
Thwin
May
M
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
Weitzel
Erik Kent
EK
McMains
Kevin Christopher
KC
Athanasiadis
Theodore
T
Psaltis
Alkis
A
Field
John
J
Wormald
Peter-John
PJ
D002908:Chronic Disease; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012852:Sinusitis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*