Tablets as an Option for Telemedicine—Evaluation of Diagnostic Performance and Efficiency in Intracranial Arterial Aneurysm Detection

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate a commercially available mobile device for the highly specialized task of detection of intracranial arterial aneurysm in telemedicine. Methods: Six radiologists with three different levels of experience retrospectively interpreted 60 computed tomography (CT) angiographies for the presence of intracranial arterial aneurysm, among them 30 cases with confirmed positive findings. Each radiologist reviewed the angiography datasets twice: once on a dedicated medical-grade workstation and on a commercially available mobile consumer-grade tablet with an interval of 3 months. Diagnostic performance, reading efficiency and subjective scorings including diagnostic confidence were analyzed and compared. Results: Diagnostic performance was comparable on both devices regardless of readers’ experience, and no significant differences in sensitivity (66–87.5%) and specificity (79.4–87%) were found. Results obtained with tablets and medical workstations were also comparable in terms of subjective assessment across all reader groups. Conclusions: There was no significant difference between tablet and workstation readings of angiography datasets for the presence of intracranial arterial aneurysm. Sensitivity, specificity, efficiency and subjective scorings were similar with the two devices for all three reader groups. While medical workstations are 10 times more expensive, tablets allow higher mobility especially for radiologists on call.