RSNA Press Release

OAK BROOK, Ill. (January 26, 2010) — The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) announced it has concluded an agreement with the American College of Radiology (ACR) to include the Breast Imaging and Data Reporting System (BI-RADS®) lexicon in RSNA's radiology lexicon, RadLex®.

"The inclusion of the BI-RADS® lexicon in RadLex® brings us closer to our goals of improved communication and accurate, clear and uniformly structured radiology reporting," said Daniel L. Rubin, M.D., chair of the RadLex® steering committee.

RadLex® is a single unified source of radiology terms that is designed to assist radiologists in organizing and retrieving online imaging reports, images, medical records and literature.

RadLex® is sponsored by RSNA, which enlisted the collaboration of other radiology organizations, including ACR, to develop the comprehensive radiology lexicon. The lexicon was designed to satisfy the needs of software developers, system vendors and radiology users by adopting the best features of existing terminology systems, while producing new terms to fill critical gaps.

"A uniform system of terminology is critical in unambiguously communicating radiologic information, not only in clinical practice, but also in education and research," Dr. Rubin said.

The ACR BI-RADS® Atlas provides standardized breast imaging terminology, report organization, assessment structure and a classification system for mammography, ultrasound and breast MRI. The ACR's development of BI-RADS® was supported by the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the American Medical Association, the American College of Surgeons and the College of American Pathologists.

As part of the agreement between RSNA and ACR, the organizations established a liaison relationship between their breast imaging committees. RSNA will designate a representative to serve on the ACR BI-RADS® Lexicon Committee, and an ACR representative with serve on the RadLex® Breast Imaging subcommittee.

RSNA (RSNA.org) is an association of more than 44,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists committed to excellence in patient care through education and research.

RadLex: A Lexicon for Uniform Indexing and Retrieval of Radiology Information Resources (Radlex.org, RSNA.org/RadLex)

ACR retains the copyright on the ACR BI-RADS® Atlas. Vendors wishing to incorporate ACR BI-RADS® into commercial reporting systems must contact ACR to obtain a license to use BI-RADS®.