In a quantitative assessment of radiologist interpretation time of ABUS studies, researchers from George Washington University Medical School found that three radiologists took a mean time of 2.9 minutes to read the exams.
ABUS studies are acquired by nonphysician personnel using a specialized scanner, compared with handheld ultrasound; physician time is only required during interpretation. In the George Washington study, 75 sequential ABUS exams that were acquired as part of a multi-institutional trial were read by one of three radiologists with a minimum of two years experience with ABUS.
Mean ABUS reading times:
Reading times for the three radiologists ranged from 26.47 seconds to 615.4 seconds, with a mean of 173.4 seconds (standard deviation = 90.4 seconds).
Lead author Dr. Rachel Brem and her team said the results suggest that ABUS is a time-efficient technique that can be effectively integrated into the workflow of a busy clinical practice.