Comparison of B readers' interpretations of chest radiographs for asbestos related changes

Our plain-English summary of Comparison of B readers' interpretations of chest radiographs for asbestos related changes, by J.P. Kassirer (Academic Radiology, 2004).

The study

• Author: J.P. Kassirer
• Journal: Academic Radiology
• Published: 2004;11(12):1396; author reply 1402-4
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item is a letter to the editor, not a research study, and it reports no new data. The author wrote in response to a study by Gitlin and colleagues, published in 2004 in Academic Radiology, that compared B readers' interpretations of chest radiographs for asbestos-related changes. In the author's opinion, that study was one of the clearest examples of how financial conflicts yield overt bias. The same page also printed the start of a second letter, by Kenneth D. Rosenman, who described himself as a non-radiologist B reader. That letter argued that the bias of B readers who regularly read for plaintiffs' attorneys may be equal to, less than, or greater than the bias of those who regularly read for defense attorneys. It noted that the Gitlin study was "conducted for" and presumably funded by defense attorneys. It also argued that the study overstated the differences between the initial and consultant readings, because only abnormal readings were selected and outlying consultants were averaged in. The second letter is cut off, and the authors' reply is not included.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Letter to the editor (opinion commentary on a published study); no original research
• Who was studied: None studied; the letter comments on a study by Gitlin and colleagues of B readers' interpretations of chest radiographs
• Exposure: None studied; the subject is chest radiograph readings for asbestos-related changes
• Main results:
  • Not a finding of this item: the second letter (Rosenman) argued that the Gitlin study was conducted for, and presumably funded by, defense attorneys, and that the bias of plaintiff-side readers may be equal to, less than, or greater than that of defense-side readers
  • Not a finding of this item: the second letter argued that the Gitlin study overstated differences between initial and consultant readings, because only abnormal initial readings were selected
  • Not a finding of this item: the second letter argued that Gitlin and colleagues averaged all consultants' results rather than eliminating outliers
• The authors' conclusion: The author's opinion was that the Gitlin study was one of the clearest examples of how financial conflicts yield overt bias

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Asbestosis.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Chest X-Ray.

Related studies

• Comparison of "B" readers' interpretations of chest radiographs for asbestos related changes — J.N. Gitlin, L.L. Cook, et al. (2004)
• Comparison of B readers' interpretations of chest radiographs for asbestos related changes — K.D. Rosenman (2004)
• Comparison of B readers' interpretations of chest radiographs for asbestos related changes — L.C. Oliver, L.S. Welch, et al. (2004)
• Comparison of B readers' interpretations of chest radiographs for asbestos related changes — A. Franzblau, B. Gillespie (2004)
• Chest radiographs in subjects with asbestos-related abnormalities: comparison between ILO categorizations and clinical reading — B. Hilt, A. Borgerson, et al. (1992)
• Inter-reader variability in chest radiography and HRCT for the early detection of asbestos-related lung and pleural abnormalities in a cohort of 636 asbestos-exposed subjects — E. Ochsmann, T. Carl, et al. (2010)

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