Chest radiograph reading panel performance in a Bangladesh pneumococcal vaccine effectiveness study

What is it about?

Chest radiographs are the current gold standard for diagnosing pneumonia in children. Pneumonia identified on a chest radiograph is used to evaluate the effectiveness of vaccines intended to prevent pneumonia. Bangladesh is an important country in South Asia that recently introduced a vaccine against pneumonia in 2015 called the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. In this study we report on the performance of a group of physicians trained to evaluate chest radiographs obtained from Bangladeshi children 3-35 months old with possible pneumonia. These chest radiographs will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. Our findings support the conclusion that the physicians interpreting these chest radiographs performed effectively and that future analyses using these chest radiographs will be valid.

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