Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Oct;7(2):e001389.
doi: 10.1136/openhrt-2020-001389.

Research priorities in cardiovascular imaging

Guo Liang Yong  1 , Jonathan Weir-McCall  2 , Michael Wilson  3 , Giles H Roditi  4 , Russell Bull  5 , Michelle Claire Williams  6 , Matthias Schmitt  7
Affiliations

Research priorities in cardiovascular imaging

Guo Liang Yong et al. Open Heart. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Aim: A modified Delphi approach was used to develop consensus opinion among British Society for Cardiac Imaging/British Society of Cardiac CT (BSCI/BSCCT) members in order to prioritise research questions in cardiovascular imaging.

Methods: All members of the BSCI/BSCCT were invited to submit research questions that they considered to be of the highest clinical and/or academic priority in the field of cardiovascular imaging (phase 1). Subsequently a steering committee removed duplicate questions and combined questions of a similar theme by consensus agreement where appropriate. BSCI/BSCCT members were invited to rank the resulting research questions in two further iterative rounds (phases 2 and 3) to determine a final list of high-priority research questions.

Results: A total of 111 research questions were submitted in phase 1 by 30 BSCI/BSCCT members. While there was a broad range of topics, from determining the optimal features/markers of the vulnerable plaque to investigating how cardiac imaging can best be used to maximise clinical outcomes and economic costs, multimodality imaging-related (n=44, 40%) questions dominated the categories and coronary artery imaging (n=40, 36%) was the most common topic. Over two iterative rounds of prioritisation of these research questions, the original 111 were reduced to 75 questions in round 2, and 25 in round 3. From these 25 a final Top 10 list was distilled by consensus grouping.

Conclusion: This study has identified and ranked the top research priorities in cardiovascular imaging, as identified by the BSCI/BSCCT membership. This is a first step towards identifying the cardiovascular imaging research priorities within the UK and may assist researchers and funding bodies alike in setting priorities.

Keywords: CT scanning; MRI; coronary artery disease; imaging and diagnostics; nuclear cardiology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Modified Delphi process for cardiovascular imaging research prioritisation.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Imaging modalities referred to the submitted research questions.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The range of topics referred to the submitted research questions. AI, artificial intelligence.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. de Roos A, Higgins CB. Cardiac radiology: centenary review. Radiology 2014;273:S142–59. 10.1148/radiol.14140432 - DOI - PubMed
    1. NHS England and NHS Improvement Diagnostic imaging dataset 2019-20 data. Available: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12...
    1. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Acute coronary syndromes in adults; 2014. - PubMed
    1. Tiernan J, Cook A, Geh I, et al. . Use of a modified Delphi approach to develop research priorities for the association of coloproctology of great britain and ireland. Colorectal Dis 2014;16:965–70. 10.1111/codi.12790 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wilson MSJ, Knight S, Vaughan-Shaw P, et al. . A modified AUGIS Delphi process to establish research priorities in bariatric and metabolic surgery. Clin Obes 2020;10:e12344. 10.1111/cob.12344 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources