The frequency of radiology reporting of childhood obesity.

Objective: The purpose of our study was to review the current practice of radiologists with respect to dictating the presence of obesity in imaging reports.

Materials And Methods: Over 1 million radiology reports dictated at a large pediatric hospital from 1994 to 2002 were analyzed for several keywords relating to obesity. The number of cases in which the keywords appeared was recorded for each year, and a percentage was calculated. Reports done in 1999 and 2000 were further analyzed to determine where the keywords were positioned within the report.

Results: The number of reports containing a keyword ranged from 131 to 456 per year. During each year, documentation of obesity occurred in less than 0.4% of all reports. During that same time period, the national prevalence of pediatric obesity ranged from 6-16%. Detailed examination of the 1999 and 2000 reports showed that even in the reports that mentioned obesity, it was usually not listed in the diagnostic impression.

Conclusion: Despite the increase in public awareness of obesity and increasing recognition of obesity-related disease, this study did not find a similar awareness among radiologists at a large pediatric radiology department. The reason for this discrepancy is speculative and likely multifactorial. Regardless, radiologists may be missing an opportunity to play a role in disease prevention and early recognition by documenting findings of obesity and thereby bringing them to the attention of referring physicians.