Spinal Metastasis Reporting: Evidence-Based Recommendation on Behalf of the American Society of Spine Radiology Education and Standards Committee

BACKGROUND: Structured reporting in radiology is universally endorsed by the radiology societies, including American Society of Neuroradiology/American Society of Spine Radiology (ASNR/ASSR). Structured reporting offers many advantages including standardization of reports and simplifying reports for referring providers and researchers to extract meaningful and important information. Furthermore, templates can guide radiologists by providing a checklist on necessary items to include in the report that can facilitate patient care and optimize patient management. METHODS: Despite the known benefits of structured reporting, structured reporting of spinal metastasis continues to be lacking. This is explained by many factors including complexity of spinal metastasis, variability of its appearance based on primaries, multiplicity of lesions/variable extent of disease, and technical differences among MRI acquisition protocols between institutions. KEY MESSAGE: In this white paper from the American Society of Spine Radiology Education and Standards Committee, we aim to provide a recommended structured reporting of spinal metastasis highlighting pertinent observations that are needed in reporting metastasis, reflecting relevance of radiology reporting to recent advances in treatment modalities, discussing advanced and emerging imaging modalities, and finally touching briefly on follow-up recommendations and challenges.