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Missed fractures are a common category of diagnostic errors and can cause malunion, osteonecrosis, and arthritis, with consequent impairment of function. In this company-funded study, researchers examined 135,845 x-rays of various bones (nearly 35,000 of which involved the wrist) from a single New York specialty hospital. Senior orthopedic surgeons scored each image for the presence of fractures and used neural network artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to “train” a computer to diagnose wrist fractures.
Researchers then conducted a controlled experiment with 40 ED clinicians: Each participant was shown an x-ray and asked to determine the presence or absence of a fracture. Then, those in a randomly assigned “aided” group were shown the c…