Telementored ultrasonography: a narrative review

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Telemedicine
• Ultrasound Technology

Background:

• Teleradiology facilitates remote interpretation of radiological images, a key telemedicine application.
• Telesonography integrates ultrasound with telemedicine to potentially speed up diagnoses.
• Current evidence on teleradiology's effectiveness and accuracy is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a literature review on existing evidence for telemedicine in ultrasound (telesonography).
• To assess the quality of evidence regarding synchronous telesonography applications.

Main Methods:

• A narrative review of literature was performed.
• Searches were conducted in multiple databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, etc.) in April 2020.
• Included studies and reference lists of key reviews were evaluated.

Main Results:

• Ten studies were included, involving various healthcare professionals guided by remote ultrasound experts.
• Only one study focused on disease diagnosis in actual patients.
• The majority of studies did not assess diagnostic accuracy in real-world clinical scenarios.

Conclusions:

• Telesonography presents a promising advancement in telemedicine.
• There is a significant lack of methodologically sound studies to validate telesonography's effectiveness.
• Further high-quality research is required to establish the benefits of telesonography.