Evidence-based radiology
During 2011, the group undertook a systematic literature search for secondary studies concerning diagnostic imaging or interventional radiology published between 2001 and 2010. Of 3502 papers initially screened, 1931 studies were selected for evaluation, and 1058 entered authorship analysis (86%). Only 231 (22%) of the studies were found to be published with a radiologist or a nuclear medicine physician as first, second or last author.
The study concluded that imaging specialists seem to play a minor role in undertaking evidence-based studies concerning their own medical field. In other words, research into diagnostic imaging and interventional procedures is defined by teams composed mainly of other medical specialists, and radiologists are clearly lagging behind.
Dynamic overview of evidence concerning sensitivities and specificities of a variety of imaging technologies in radiology
The group aims to provide an overview of evidence concerning sensitivities and specificities of MRI, CT, ultrasound, conventional radiography, PET, SPECT, and scintigraphy for a range of clinical applications. To date, 343 publications have been retrieved. After the exclusion of non-eligible candidates, studies referring to MRI (39), CT (43), ultrasound (53), conventional radiography (9), PET (21), SPECT (10) and scintigraphy (16) were reviewed. An exponential increase in the number of meta-analyses was found over time. The overview will be published on Wikipedia.
Multicenter study on preoperative breast MRI in clinical practice
The study “Preoperative breast MRI multicenter international prospective analysis (MIPA)” commenced in mid-2012 under the direction of EIBIR and Professor Francesco Sardanelli, University of Milan School of Medicine/IT and Director of EIBIR’s Joint Initiative EuroAIM, in collaboration with the European Society of Breast Imaging (EUSOBI) and is financially supported by Bayer Pharma AG.