Are clinically unimportant findings qualified as benign in lumbar spine imaging reports? A content analysis of plain X-ray, CT and MRI reports

Lumbar spine diagnostic imaging reports may cause patient and clinician concern when clinically unimportant findings are not explicitly described as benign. Our primary aim was to determine the frequency that common, benign findings are reported in lumbar spine plain X-ray, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reports as either normal for age or likely clinically unimportant. We obtained 600 random de-identified adult lumbar spine imaging reports (200 X-ray, 200 CT and 200 MRI) from a large radiology provider. Only reports requested for low back pain were included. From the report text, one author extracted each finding (e.g., 'broad-based posterior disc bulge') and whether it was present or absent (e.g., no disc bulge) until data saturation was reached, pre-defined as a minimum of 50 reports and no new/similar findings in the last ten reports within each imaging modality. Two authors independently judged whether each finding was likely clinically unimportant or important. For each likely clinicially unimportant finding they also determined if it had been explicitly reported to be benign (expressed as normal, normal for age, benign, clinically unimportant or non-significant). Data saturation was reached after coding 262 reports (80 X-ray, 82 CT, 100 MRI). Across all reports we extracted 3,598 findings. Nearly all reports included at least one clinically unimportant finding (76/80 (95%) X-ray, 80/82 (98%) CT, 99/100 (99%) MRI). Over half of the findings (n = 2,062, 57%; 272 X-Ray, 667 CT, 1123 MRI) were judged likely clinically unimportant. Most likely clinically unimportant findings (90%, n = 1,854) were reported to be present on imaging (rather than absent) and of those only 18% (n = 331) (89 (35%) X-ray, 93 (16%) CT and 149 (15%) MRI) were explicitly reported as benign. Lumbar spine imaging reports frequently include findings unlikely to be clinically important without explicitly qualifying that they are benign.