Asim Choudhri, MD, a physician in the neuroradiology division at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore presented a study that investigated whether iPhone applications can improve upon acute appendicitis diagnoses. Choudhri presented his findings at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
"The goal is to improve the speed and accuracy of medical diagnoses as well as to improve communications among different consulting physicians," Choudhri said. "When we can make these determinations earlier, the appropriate surgical teams and equipment can be assembled before the surgeon even has the chance to examine the patient," he said.
In Choudhri's study 15 of the 25 patients were correctly identified as having acute appendicitis. These diagnoses proved accurate for 74 out of 75 interpretations, which is about 99 percent of the time. There was only one false negative -- and no false positives.
"The iPhone interpretations of the CT scans were as accurate as the interpretations viewed on dedicated picture archiving and communication system (PACS) workstations," Choudhri said.
