Written Annotations While Reading

As radiologists, we have all developed our own styles of reading and dictating. In the case of PET/CT, however, it is exceedingly difficult to avoid at least limited note taking while reading – as it is a huge exam (whole body, in multiple planes) with multiple lesions to compare (both size and metabolic activity).

Cursory annotations while reading facilitate quick, efficient and accurate dictations.  In our experience, these annotations are also a great way to assure that all findings you observed actually make it to the written report.

Here at PETCTMD, we have developed what we believe to be an efficient notation system for managing all these numbers for the dictation.

Until you develop your own system, we recommend that each reported lesion be annotated as follows: