Attention turns to appropriateness criteria

The American College of Radiology (ACR) has released an update to its Appropriateness Criteria (AC), which now includes six new and six revised topics. 

The six new topics are as follows:

1. Acute elbow and forearm pain
2. Endometriosis
3. Imaging of suspected intracranial hypotension
4. Penetrating torso trauma
5. Thoracic back pain
6. Tracheobronchial disease

The topics that were revised are the following:

1. Acute onset of scrotal pain-without trauma, without antecedent mass
2. Altered mental status, coma, delirium, and psychosis
3. Multiple gestations
4. Nonvariceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding
5. Pretreatment staging of urothelial cancer
6. Stress (fatigue/insufficiency) fracture, including sacrum, excluding other vertebrae

The criteria in total include 239 diagnostic imaging and interventional radiology topics with more than 1,200 clinical variants covering 3,900 clinical scenarios. All topics include a narrative, an evidence table, and a literature search summary. Spanish translations of the ACR AC are also available from Colegio Interamericano de Radiología, and more versions will be posted on a rolling basis as translations progress, according to the ACR.

The full ACR AC can be found here.