Experiences with a teleradiology system in pulmonary diseases

Chest radiographs of 43 patients were digitized and sent from Paimio Hospital to Turku University Central Hospital. Fifteen of the patients had a pneumothorax, 12 had interstitial lung disease and 16 were controls. The images were interpreted by 5 radiologists during their duty shift. The first reading session consisted of images with 1,024 x 1,024 pixel resolution and the second of images with 2,048 x 2,048 matrix followed by the original chest radiographs. ROC studies were performed from the answers based on a 5-point confidence scale. In the pneumothorax group the average area under the individual ROC curve was 0.928 with the 1,024 x 1,024 matrix and 0.983 with the 2,048 x 2,048 matrix. In the fibrosis group the average area under the individual ROC curve was 0.877 with the 1,024 x 1,024 matrix and 0.831 with the 2,048 x 2,048 matrix. The results suggest that the 1,024 x 1,024 matrix is adequate in the detection of pneumothoraces and fibrosis.