Photoshop fakes pathology

Korean researchers tested the ability of radiologists to spot CT images altered with commercially available software to introduce pathology and found that their skill is no more certain than the toss of a coin. Researchers from the Catholic University of Korea designed a test to find out how well 17 attending radiologists and 13 residents could spot faked and real pathology in a set of 10 images.

After being told that some of the images were digitally altered, the attending radiologists were able to spot the five fakes only 51.8% of the time. Residents spotted the fakes just 47.7% of the time.

“The recognition of retouched images was like coin flipping,” said Catholic University’s Hee Jae Chang, who presented the study at the 2009 RSNA meeting.

For more details about the study (abstract No. SSQ10-04), along with comments from the audience and moderators, go to Diagnostic Imaging’s RSNA 2009 conference reporter at diagnosticimaging.com. The article was posted Dec. 4.

And, so you know, the one on the left is the altered image.