3 Little Words to Avoid in Your DR Report

Vocabulary Test: Way more than an image receipt, your rad report remains a clinical work doc, directly influencing disease staging and surgical management. Communicating as clearly as clinically possible ensures that our audiences (e.g., referring clinicians, the next rad, etc.) don’t misinterpret findings that carry medicolegal definitions.

All Our Words Are a Stage: During his leadoff lecture from the “How to Write a Quality Radiology Report” series at ARRS26, Francis Deng, MD, breaks down the diagnostic rad’s perspective on what, precisely, transforms a standard imaging read into a truly great medical report.

In specialized contexts, of course, many terms used casually as adjectives in our reading rooms have rigid criteria. But when this trio (BCE, specifically) is typed or uttered incorrectly, “bulky, conglomerate, encasement” could lead to inappropriate treatment paths or inaccurate staging.

• “Bulky”
  • Frequently used to mean “large,” but vis-à-vis Hodgkin lymphoma, it has a strict definition (i.e., using incorrectly could upstage the disease):
    • a mass >10 cm or >1/3 the diameter of the thorax.
• “Conglomerate”
  • Often used to describe a “cluster,” but in HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, it specifically denotes extranodal extension—where nodes have fused into a matted, coalescent mass. This distinction can shift plans from upfront surgery to definitive radiotherapy.
• “Encasement”
  • Re: pancreatic cancer per se, this term identifies at least 180-degree contact between tumor and vessel, a primary determinant for whether a disease is considered resectable.

RadFYI: Wordsmithing ain’t about semantics; it’s about management. A rad’s words travel far beyond, to a Global Reading Room even, carrying specific weight for the treating clinician.

0:00 – Introduction: The Radiologist as the Influencer of Medicine

1:19 – Structuring an Objective, Skimmable Findings Section

2:34 – The Hidden Value of Structured Reporting & Checklists

3:35 – Wordsmithing: Avoiding Jargon & Using Precise Language

8:22 – The Clinical Weight of Words (“Bulky”, “Conglomerate”)

9:38 – Crafting a Standalone, Actionable Impression Section

12:38 – Synthesizing Multimodal Imaging & Clinical Context

14:10 – Case Study: Head & Neck Cancer PET CT Synthesis