Radiology, Vol 181, 669-673, Copyright © 1991 by Radiological Society of North America

ARTICLES

Current use of screening laboratory tests before abdominal interventions: a survey of 603 radiologists

SG Silverman, BF Coughlin, SE Seltzer, RG Swensson and PR Mueller
Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115.

A survey of 2,153 radiologists was conducted to assess both their current practices of evaluating hemostatic function and their use of blood tests before performing image-guided nonvascular abdominal interventions. Among the 603 (28%) who responded, more radiologists routinely perform prothrombin time (81%) or partial thromboplastin time (78%) tests than platelet counts (59%), and relatively few (7%) obtain bleeding times. The most common practice (51%) is to order all of the first three tests. Use of laboratory tests is quite common (greater than 75%) before biopsy of splenic masses, hemangiomas, or hepatomas and before all catheter insertions. These tests are used less frequently (less than or equal to 70%) before fine-needle procedures, including biopsy and cyst aspiration. Only one-third of the radiologists alter their evaluation in patients who have taken aspirin. Most respondents (64%) believe that there should be written guidelines on how to evaluate patients before interventional procedures. Virtually all (97%) thought such evaluation should be the radiologist's responsibility.

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