PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - A. Dahan
AU  - R. Pereira
AU  - C.B. Malpas
AU  - T. Kalincik
AU  - F. Gaillard
TI  - PACS Integration of Semiautomated Imaging Software Improves Day-to-Day MS Disease Activity Detection
AID  - 10.3174/ajnr.A6195
DP  - 2019 Oct 01
TA  - American Journal of Neuroradiology
PG  - 1624--1629
VI  - 40
IP  - 10
4099  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/40/10/1624.short
4100  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/40/10/1624.full
SO  - Am. J. Neuroradiol.2019 Oct 01; 40
AB  - BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The standard for evaluating interval radiologic activity in MS, side-by-side MR imaging comparison, is restricted by its time-consuming nature and limited sensitivity. VisTarsier, a semiautomated software for comparing volumetric FLAIR sequences, has shown better disease-activity detection than conventional comparison in retrospective studies. Our objective was to determine whether implementing this software in day-to-day practice would show similar efficacy.MATERIALS AND METHODS: VisTarsier created an additional coregistered image series for reporting a color-coded disease-activity change map for every new MS MR imaging brain study that contained volumetric FLAIR sequences. All other MS studies, including those generated during software-maintenance periods, were interpreted with side-by-side comparison only. The number of new lesions reported with software assistance was compared with those observed with traditional assessment in a generalized linear mixed model. Questionnaires were sent to participating radiologists to evaluate the perceived day-to-day impact of the software.RESULTS: Nine hundred six study pairs from 538 patients during 2 years were included. The semiautomated software was used in 841 study pairs, while the remaining 65 used conventional comparison only. Twenty percent of software-aided studies reported having new lesions versus 9% with standard comparison only. The use of this software was associated with an odds ratio of 4.15 for detection of new or enlarging lesions (P = .040), and 86.9% of respondents from the survey found that the software saved at least 2–5 minutes per scan report.CONCLUSIONS: VisTarsier can be implemented in real-world clinical settings with good acceptance and preservation of accuracy demonstrated in a retrospective environment.AICakaike information criterionCSSCconventional side-by-side comparisonEDSSExpanded Disability Status ScaleVTVisTarsier