Plastic bowing fractures of the pediatric forearm: evaluation of a novel computer aided method for detection

Summary

Presented orally at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 101st Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, this study evaluated a computer-aided detection (CAD) method for plastic bowing fractures in pediatric forearm radiographs. The retrospective analysis included radiographs from 55 pediatric patients. The method used morphological operations to extract bone features and curvature measurements to assess bowing; its results were compared with radiologists’ interpretations using leave-one-out cross-validation.

The conference abstract reports 80% sensitivity and 92% specificity for detecting plastic bowing fractures. It also reports no statistically significant difference between the proposed method and radiologists’ conventional readings (t-test, p > 0.05). These findings describe a retrospective evaluation in a small patient sample; the abstract presents the method as a possible second opinion, not as a clinically validated or autonomous diagnostic system.

Presentation

The presentation was listed as oral presentation RC213-04, scheduled for November 30, 2015, at the RSNA meeting in Chicago. The meeting ran November 29–December 4, 2015.