A computerized filing system for radiology teaching cases.

A teaching file can be a valuable asset to academic radiology departments and private practice groups, providing that the retrieval of cases for specific needs can be performed easily and quickly. Traditionally, cases from a teaching file are selected either randomly or sequentially according to their indexing system, usually the anatomic region or organ system. However, to take full advantage of a large teaching file, which potentially could be used to illustrate presentations, books, and articles, specific cases must be retrievable on the basis of any one of several elements, for example, disease, body part, chief complaint, technique used, or any combination of the above. The practical application of such a complex filing system requires the use of a data base tailored for the radiology department. We developed a data-base management program called DBRAD that runs on a personal cornputer and performs case-searching and other tasks. The program is completely menu-driven and provides its users easy and quick access to a large radiologic data base as well as a complete set of maintenance functions.