Radiology
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Radiological reporting has generated large quantities of digital content within the electronic health record, which is potentially a valuable source of information for improving clinical care and supporting research. Although radiology reports are stored for communication and documentation of diagnostic imaging, harnessing their potential requires efficient and automated information extraction: they exist mainly as free-text clinical narrative, from which it is a major challenge to obtain structured data. Natural language processing (NLP) provides techniques that aid the conversion of text into a structured representation, and thus enables computers to derive meaning from human (ie, natural language) input. ⋯ A systematic literature search identified 67 relevant publications describing NLP methods that support practical applications in radiology. This review takes a close look at the individual studies in terms of tasks (ie, the extracted information), the NLP methodology and tools used, and their application purpose and performance results. Additionally, limitations, future challenges, and requirements for advancing NLP in radiology will be discussed.
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Comparative Study
Pulmonary Imaging Biomarkers of Gas Trapping and Emphysema in COPD: (3)He MR Imaging and CT Parametric Response Maps.
To directly compare magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and computed tomography (CT) parametric response map (PRM) measurements of gas trapping and emphysema in ex-smokers both with and without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). ⋯ In all ex-smokers, ADC values were significantly elevated in regions of PRM gas trapping, and VDP was quantitatively and spatially related to both PRM gas trapping and PRM emphysema. In patients with mild to moderate COPD, VDP was related to PRM gas trapping, whereas in patients with severe COPD, VDP correlated with both PRM gas trapping and PRM emphysema.
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To determine the frequency of acute traumatic findings in computed tomographic (CT) chest abdomen pelvis (CAP) examinations in patients with acute traumatic head and/or cervical spine injury and no evidence suggesting bodily injury. ⋯ CT CAP examinations rarely if ever reveal acute traumatic injury in patients who have experienced low-velocity trauma and have acute head and/or cervical spine trauma in the absence of evidence of bodily injury.
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To estimate the effect of an oral 13-hour inpatient corticosteroid premedication regimen on length of stay, hospital cost, and hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) by using a combination of real and hypothetical study populations. ⋯ Oral 13-hour inpatient corticosteroid prophylaxis is associated with substantial cost relative to its modest benefit, and may cause more indirect harm than the direct harm that it prevents.