A new study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) shows that personal communication devices, such as Apple’s iPhone, may one day be a standard radiology consultation tool for radiologists and hospital emergency rooms. 

The authors note that radiologists using personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart phones are nothing new. Walking the halls of RSNA 2009 in Chicago, it was common to see radiologists with iPhones and Blackberries. In addition, more PACS vendors are incorporating smart phone applications (“apps”) into their PACS solutions. However, the issue for physicians has been the ability to confidently make an accurate diagnosis on a screen that is the size of one’s hand.

In a press release, Rachel J. Toomey, lead author of the study and researcher at the University College Dublin School of Medicine and Medical Science in Dublin, Ireland explained, “Although the benefits of handheld devices in the daily routine of clinicians is not under debate, the accurate display of medical images is disputed and has not been extensively researched.” 

To answer this question, Toomey and her team compared the diagnostic efficacy of an iPod Touch with secondary-class monitors. A group of board certified radiologists were given wrist radiographs and images from a CT of the brain; in all, there were 168 readings.

The results? Promising for the smart phones, especially for the wrist radiographs.  “In the PDA brain CT study, the scores of PDA readings were significantly higher than those of monitor readings when all observers’ readings are taken into account. No statistically significant differences between handheld device and monitor findings were found for the PDA wrist images or in the iPod Touch devices studies, although some comparisons did approach significance,” said Toomey.

Toomey added, “The results suggest that the handheld devices investigated in this study may be comparable with secondary monitors for reporting findings on intracranial bleeds on CT images and fractured wrists on radiographs and may be of value in radiology, particularly for teleconsultation and emergency procedures.”

Read the full study in the February issue of the AJR at www.ajronline.org.

(Source: Press Release)     

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