Medical iPad use in the cardiac catheterization and echo laboratories

The present study aims to describe a dedicated cardiac imaging application on a tablet and to assess the accuracy and reproducibility of this novel application for measurement on angiography and echocardiography data sets. Tablet devices have recently been used in radiological image interpretation and enable transfer of images. It allows the clinician to look up clinical information, search the Internet and communicate with colleagues and family. The study group consisted of 30 patients who had both echocardiographic and angiographic examinations. For each patient, a few measurements (i.e. length, area and angle) were performed using the iPad, and compared to the McKesson workstation, which is routinely used in the hospital. In order to show the equivalence between these two methods, a linear regression was fitted and the distribution of differences between measurements was examined. In addition, the variability of the measurements was compared between two different reviewers (inter-observer test) and between the measurements of the same reviewer at two different time settings (intra-observer test) by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). In all comparisons, the linear regression showed high correlation coefficient (r > 0.9), and the distribution of differences was around zero, implying that the two methods lead to equivalent results. The absolute mean difference between the two different observers demonstrated high agreement between the two observers’ repeated measurements. The same conclusions can be deduced from the same observer’s repeated measurements. The ICC indicates the resemblance between the two sets, and could be considered almost perfect (ICC > 0.968 for all cases). The newly developed cardiology iPad application offers the opportunity to accurately present the cardiac procedure in a visual, clear and professional manner.