The computer analysis and diagnosis of gastric ulcers.

THE VALUE of roentgenographic examination of the stomach in patients with upper gastrointestinal symptoms is well established (10, 12), and the accuracy of the roentgenologist in detecting all stomach abnormalities has been variously cited to be between 85 and 95 per cent (1, 3, 4, 7, 10). Even so, one of the most controversial differential diagnoses confronting a radiologist is that of whether a gastric ulcer is benign or malignant (15). Many roentgen signs have been described which are thought to be of value in making this differentiation, but the statistical significance of the various clinical findings and roentgenographic signs has never been established. The use of computers in analyzing data relating to medical disease entities is widely accepted. Computer diagnosis has exceeded the diagnostic accuracy of the trained radiologist in selected bone tumors (8). Radiographic manifestations of carcinoma of the lung have also been evaluated by computer technics (9). The statistical evaluation of 70 radiog...