Consensus statement aims to improve clarity, consistency of ultrasound terminology
The increase of ultrasound in musculoskeletal and sports medicine has led to the development of a multidisciplinary expert consensus statement to improve the clarity of communication in clinical practice and consistency in the literature.
According to Mederic M. Hall, MD, clinical professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation and director of musculoskeletal and sports ultrasound at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, the impetus of the creation of the consensus statement for musculoskeletal and sports ultrasound terminology stemmed from the variability in terms used, which has led to confusion in both the clinical setting and the teaching setting. The variability may also lead to key research being missed in a literature search if researchers are unaware of the differing terms, he added.
“This is a young field still — particularly from the procedural side, doing an ultrasound guided sonosurgery — and if we’re not describing it the same way consistently, it’s going to be hard to keep track of that as we try to build on each other’s work moving forward,” Hall, co-lead author of the consensus statement, told Healio.
Be familiar with terminology
A multidisciplinary expert panel consisting of 18 members representing sports medicine, radiology, orthopedics, anesthesia and pain medicine, and physical medicine and rehabilitation specialty societies used a Delphi process to reach consensus on multiple areas of variability in diagnostic ultrasound and ultrasound-guided procedures related to musculoskeletal and sports medicine. The panel defined consensus as group level agreement of greater than 80%.
“The big things are being familiar with the main terminology that’s used all the time, particularly in descriptors,” Hall said.
For those performing the ultrasound, Hall noted the consensus document provides definitions for and figures that demonstrate basic transducer manipulation terms. It also provides definitions for anatomic and descriptive terms, including different body planes, axes and directional terms.
“Those terms are helpful so everybody knows exactly what the image is, how it’s described and what they’re looking at or what they’re reading from the report,” Hall said.
Create consistency in practice, literature
While the panel recognized that multiple terms are used for pathology and procedural terminology, they aimed to highlight those that represent the best terms based on the literature and expert opinion, according to Hall.
“A few times we highlighted that there are other acceptable terms, but I do think if people get used to using these terms which we thought were most supported by the literature and by practice, then it can be helpful to make sure we’re talking about the same thing,” he said.
Not only does Hall hope this consensus document will bring consistency to the literature and clear up controversies regarding names of procedures, but he also hopes it will help on the billing side of practice.
“There are a lot of issues with billing and coding terms and definitions that I think were based on arbitrary definitions of terms that were used and sometimes this creates a lot of problems,” Hall said. “So, I’m hoping that this is helpful from that regard where we can all agree upon what some of these terms mean and what their appropriate use is to bring more clarity there.”
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