Was the ultrasound examination for developmental dysplasia of the hip performed correctly? Introduction of a rapid training tool for nonexpert practitioners.

Abstract

Pediatricians and general practitioners are involved in the newborn screening for developmental dysplasia of the hip. They often rely on the quality of the ultrasound (US) examination to make diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Therefore, the professional must be able to assess its quality. The aim of our work is to present a new system to evaluate the quality of a neonatal hip US and to assess the effectiveness and reproducibility of this tool among professionals involved in the evaluation of the neonatal hip but not experts in the radiological examination of hip US. In a 15-min training session, 135 professionals involved in neonatal hip US screening with limited or no experience in evaluating the quality of hip US were taught to recognize the basic landmarks of hip US using evocative descriptions (Christmas ball) despite the technical terms. Before and after training, participants were given a test of 10 hip US images presented in random order and asked to identify incorrect images. One hundred thirty-five physicians participated in the study. In the first and second evaluation, participants answered 1.46 ± 2.49 and 8.64 ± 1.51 questions correctly on average (P < 0.05); analysis of the individual questions showed a significant improvement (P < 0.05) for all questions. A simple and relatively quick training tool can help professionals with little or no experience in interpreting neonatal hip US to understand when a hip US exam has been performed incorrectly and improve their diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Level of evidence: III.