Medicsight CAD Significantly Improved Reader Performance In Published CT Colonography Study

Medicsight announced the publication in the December 2006 issue of Gastroenterology of a study that showed Medicsight CAD (computer- aided detection) significantly improved reader interpretation of CT colonography. The paper was published with a directed editorial.

The study investigated the effect of CAD assistance on the performance of 10 readers who were 'non-expert' in the interpretation of CT colonography. While there have been several studies of CAD performance in isolation, this was the largest study to investigate the effect of CAD on readers' interpretation of CT colonography. The study was performed by Professor Steve Halligan and colleagues from University College Hospital London and the Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Oxford, UK.Each participant read 107 CT colonography cases: 60 patients had 142 polyps and the remaining 47 had normal colons. The cases were first read without the assistance of CAD and then two months later the studies were read with the assistance of CAD (Medicsight ColonCAR(TM)). The study found that readers detected significantly more polyps with CAD than without. For example, with CAD 41 (68 percent) of the 60 patients with polyps were more likely to be detected by readers.This effect was mostly a result of improved detection of polyps measuring 9mm or smaller in maximal diameter. Importantly, specificity was not adversely affected by CAD -- while sensitivity increased significantly in 7 readers, specificity declined significantly in only one.The study also investigated a concurrent read paradigm, where the CAD annotated and un-annotated images are presented to the reader simultaneously. The investigators found that this approach shortened reader interpretation time significantly when compared to CAD unassisted interpretation: by 1.9 minutes for patients with polyps and by 2.9 for those without. Overall, 9 (90 percent) of the readers benefited when using CAD, either due to increased sensitivity, decreased interpretation time, or a combination of both.(Source: Gastroenterology : University College Hospital London : December 2006.)