Computer-aided diagnosis of acute abdominal pain. The British experience.

This presentation reviews the U.K. experience of computer-aided diagnosis of acute abdominal pain--which now relates to over 30,000 cases seen in more than 10 hospitals during a 13 years period. Following a discussion of the philosophy, construction and mode of usage of the systems employed, results of this experience are presented. Computer-aided diagnosis in this area has been shown to be feasible and (if correctly utilised) leads to improvements in patient care, diagnosis, and decision making by the doctors involved. In this context, the computer is simply one element of an integrated package reaffirming the importance of traditional clinical medicine.