Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Synchronized navigation of current and prior studies using image registration improves radiologist’s efficiency

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the use of multi-modal rigid image registration integrated within a standard picture archiving and communication system affects the efficiency of a radiologist while performing routine interpretations of cases including prior examinations.

Methods

Six radiologists were recruited to read a set of cases (either 16 neuroradiology or 14 musculoskeletal cases) during two crossover reading sessions. Each radiologist read each case twice, one time with synchronized navigation, which enables spatial synchronization across examinations from different study dates, and one time without. Efficiency was evaluated based upon time to read a case and amount of scrolling while browsing a case using Wilcoxon signed rank test.

Results

Significant improvements in efficiency were found considering either all radiologists simultaneously, the two sections separately and the majority of individual radiologists for time to read and for amount of scrolling. The relative improvement for each individual radiologist ranged from 4 to 32% for time to read and from 14 to 38% for amount of scrolling.

Conclusion

Image registration providing synchronized navigation across examinations from different study dates provides a tool that enables radiologists to work more efficiently while reading cases with one or more prior examinations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  1. Winer-Muram HT, Jennings SG, Tarver RD, Aisen AM, Tann M, Conces DJ, Meyer CA (2002) Volumetric growth rate of stage I lung cancer prior to treatment: serial CT scanning. Radiology 223:798–805

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Burnside ES, Sickles EA, Sohlich RE, Dee KE (2002) Differential value of comparison with previous examinations in diagnostic versus screening mammography. AJR Am J Roentgenol 179:1173–1177

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Roelofs AAJ, Karssemeijer N, Wedekind N, Beck C, van Woudenberg S, Snoeren PR, Hendriks JHCL, Rosselli del Turco M, Bjurstam N, Junkermann H, Beijerinck D, Séradour B, Evertsz CJG (2007) Importance of comparison of current and prior mammograms in breast cancer screening. Radiology 242:70–77

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Berlin L (1999) Comparing new radiographs with those obtained previously. AJR Am J Roentgenol 172:3–6

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Berlin L (2000) Must new radiographs be compared with all previous radiographs, or only with the most recently obtained radiographs? AJR Am J Roentgenol 2000(174):611–615

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. American College of Radiology. ACR practice parameter for communication of diagnostic image findings. Revised 2014 (Resolution 11). Retrieved from http://www.acr.org/~/media/ACR/Documents/PGTS/guidelines/Comm_Diag_Imaging.pdf

  7. Lakhani P, Menschik ED, Goldszal AF, Murray JP, Weiner MG, Langlotz CP (2006) Development and validation of queries using structured query language (SQL) to determine the utilization of comparison imaging in radiology reports stored on PACS. J Digit Imaging 19:52–68

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Hajnal JV, Saeed N, Oatridge A, Williams EJ, Young IR, Bydder GM (1995) Detection of subtle brain changes using subvoxel registration and subtraction of serial MR images. J Comput Assist Tomogr 19:677–691

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Alpert NM, Berdichevsky D, Levin Z, Thangaraj V, Gonzalez G, Lev MH (2001) Performance evaluation of an automated system for registration and postprocessing of CT scans. J Comput Assist Tomogr 25:747–752

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Gedat E, Braun J, Sack I, Bernarding J (2004) Prospective registration of human head magnetic resonance images for reproducible slice positioning using localizer images. J Magn Reson Imaging 20:581–587

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Brown LG (1992) A survey of image registration techniques. ACM Comput Surv 24:325–376

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Maintz JA, Viergever MAA (1998) survey of medical image registration. Med Image Anal 2:1–36

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Holden MA (2008) Review of geometric transformations for nonrigid body registration. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 27:111–128

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Sotiras A, Davatzikos C, Paragios N (2013) Deformable medical image registration: a survey. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 32:1153–1190

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Barish MA, Moffett RA (2014) PACS-integrated automatic deformable chest CT registration reduces radiologist time to match lung nodule locations across serial exams. Paper presented at the annual meeting of SIIM in the scientific session Advanced Imaging & CAD, Long Beach, CA. Paper retrieved from http://siim.org/siim2014/scientific-program/pacs-integrated-automatic-deformable-chest-ct-registration-reduces

  16. Tan IL, van Schijndel RA, Fazekas F, Filippi M, Freitag P, Miller DH, Yousry TA, Pouwels PJW, Adèr HJ, Barkhof F (2002) Image registration and subtraction to detect active T2 lesions in MS: an interobserver study. J Neurol 249:767–773

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Erickson BJ, Mandrekar J, Wang L, Patriarche JW, Bartholmai BJ, Wood CP, Lindell EP, Sykes AM, Harms GF, Lindell RM, Andirole K (2007) Effect of automated image registration on radiologist interpretation. J Digit Imaging 20:105–113

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Erickson BJ, Patriarche J, Wood C, Campeau N, Lindell EP, Savcenko V, Arslanlar N, Wang L (2007) Image registration improves confidence and accuracy of image interpretation. Cancer Inform 4:19–24

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  19. Erickson BJ, Wood CP, Kaufmann TJ, Patriarche JW, Mandrekar J (2011) Optimal presentation modes for detecting brain tumor progression. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol 32:1652–1657

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Tai YC, Lin KP, Hoh CK, Huang SCH, Hoffman EJ (1997) Utilization of 3-D elastic transformation in the registration of chest X-ray CT and whole body PET. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 44:1606–1612

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Schellingerhout D, Lev MH, Bagga RJ, Rincon S, Berdichevsky D, Thangaraj V, Gonzalez RG, Alpert NM (2003) Coregistration of head CT comparison studies: assessment of clinical utility. Acad Radiol 10:242–248

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Rey D, Subsol G, Delingette H, Ayache N (2002) Automatic detection and segmentation of evolving processes in 3D medical images: application to multiple sclerosis. Med Image Anal 6:163–179

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Holden M, Schnabel J, Hill DL (2002) Quantification of small cerebral ventricular volume changes in treated growth hormone patients using nonrigid registration. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 21:1292–1301

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

D. Forsberg is supported by a Grant (2014-01422) from the Swedish Innovation Agency (VINNOVA).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sectra AB, Teknikringen 20, 583 30, Linköping, Sweden

    Daniel Forsberg

  2. Department of Radiology, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Daniel Forsberg, Amit Gupta, Christopher Mills, Brett MacAdam, Beverly Rosipko, Barbara A. Bangert, Michael D. Coffey, Christos Kosmas & Jeffrey L. Sunshine

Authors
  1. Daniel Forsberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Amit Gupta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Christopher Mills
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Brett MacAdam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Beverly Rosipko
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Barbara A. Bangert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Michael D. Coffey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Christos Kosmas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Jeffrey L. Sunshine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel Forsberg.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

D. Forsberg reports grants from VINNOVA and employment at Sectra (a PACS vendor), during the conduct of the study. The other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

No procedures involving human participants were performed as the study was a retrospective study. For this type of study formal consent is not required.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Forsberg, D., Gupta, A., Mills, C. et al. Synchronized navigation of current and prior studies using image registration improves radiologist’s efficiency. Int J CARS 12, 431–438 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-016-1506-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-016-1506-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation