Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine whether additional radiographs, as judged necessary by the radiographer, improves cancer detection during gastric cancer screening.
Materials and methods: We analyzed 144 gastric cancer cases among 137 744 individuals who underwent X-ray screening for gastric cancer. Radiographs were obtained by 17 radiographers at a screening center in Japan from April 2004 to March 2008. Additional radiographs were taken based on the radiographer's judgment in cases of suspected cancer. During double-blind reinterpretation of the cancer case radiographs by two radiologists, we determined the number of cancer cases that were detected by standard radiographs alone. We next determined the number of cancer cases detected using both standard radiographs and additional radiographs.
Results: Compared to the number of cancer cases detected with standard radiographs alone (120 cases detected, 24 cases undetected), the number of cancer cases detected with both standard and additional radiographs (137 cases detected, 7 cases undetected) significantly increased (17 cases; P < 0.001, McNemar test).
Conclusion: We found that taking additional radiographs, when judged necessary by the radiographer during radiographic gastric cancer screening, improves cancer detection.