TUESDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- Aortic dilations picked up on computed tomography (CT) scans are often not recorded by clinicians in the patient's electronic medical record, according to a study published in the July 7 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Jennifer R.S. Gordon, of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, and colleagues analyzed data from two hospitals in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System on 4,112 patients who underwent CT scans which detected 440 (11 percent) patients with aortic dilations.

The researchers found that, of the 91 dilations which were new findings, 5 percent were notified by radiologists to the clinical team concerned. Within three months of the CT scan, clinicians had not recorded 53 (58 percent) of the new dilations, of which 9 percent were 5.5 centimeters or larger. Recognition of aneurysm in the electronic medical record took a mean 237 days and 16 (29 percent) cases of abnormalities were not recorded at all, the authors note.

"It is somewhat reassuring that we found no evidence of patient harm as a result of the delays that were identified," Gordon and colleagues conclude. "Our findings highlight the need for innovative solutions to ensure that abnormal findings are consistently recognized and documented by clinical care teams."

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