Evaluating the clinical efficacy of diagnostic imaging procedures

In this paper the consequences of medical imaging are examined. The principal aims were to develop and test methods of evaluating and comparing, in a quantitative manner, the efficacy and utility of diagnostic imaging procedures. Although the techniques have been developed and applied to transmission computed tomography of the head (with a current extension to magnetic resonance imaging), the aim throughout has been to develop a flexible methodology which can be easily applied to other modalities and organ systems or diagnostic tests other than radiology. This paper covers the development of data acquisition and analysis methods and the testing of these on the data collected in the pilot study. (author). 11 refs., 7 figs., 1 tab