FRACTURE Study

The FRACTURE Study is trying to find out whether a computer programme (artificial intelligence, AI) can help find broken bones on X-rays accurately and help improve outcomes for children

Study Animation

Do you think artificial intelligence should be used to make decisions on your imaging scans? 

We want to hear from children and young adults : CLICK HERE

We also want to hear from parents, carers, adults who work with children: CLICK HERE

For more information on this study and how you can be involved keep scrolling down!

What is the problem?

Around half of all the 12 million children (<16 years) in the UK will break a bone (a fracture) during childhood.

A bone X-ray helps doctors see the fracture and make decisions on treatment.

There are three problems with identifying children’s fractures:

  1. Growing bones can look like fractures.
  2. Children have different types of fractures than adults (e.g. buckle fractures)
  3. Fractures in children are not always obvious

 

Without an expert opinion from a radiologist (a specialist who looks at medical images), mistakes are made in diagnosing children’s fractures by emergency doctors. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough specialist children’s radiologists in the NHS to check all X-rays immediately, meaning a delay in recognising mistakes.

 

If fractures are missed, children will be left in pain and won’t get the right treatment, leading to long term problems with discomfort and disability. In some cases, a fracture can be a sign of abuse, and crucial opportunities to arrange for the child’s safety are missed.

 

What can be done?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to be used to find fractures on children’s Xrays as accurately as a radiologist. AI is a computer programme trained to carry out actions usually done by humans – in this case to find fractures on X-rays. This could reduce the number of missed fractures, ensure children get the right treatment quickly, reduce inefficiencies and delay within the NHS.

How will this help patients?

If this programme works well, it could be installed in hospitals helping doctors make the right decisions. More children’s fractures will be correctly managed, quicker and more efficiently – ensuring all children get referred for best onward care.

The FRACTURE Study

A multi-centre, multi-reader, multi-disciplinary study addressing patient/parent opinions on artificial intelligence (AI) and development & assessment of AI for children’s fracture detection on X-rays.

Step 1

A large survey of children and parents will be carried out, asking their views about using AI for diagnosis and how best to introduce this in the NHS, helping us make our programme as acceptable to patients as possible

Step 2

A computer programme (using AI) will be developed to ‘learn’ which X-rays are normal and abnormal, using thousands of examples of X-rays from children who visited hospitals in the UK.

Step 3

The programme will be tested on new X-rays to see how many mistakes it makes, compared to radiologists.

Step 4

The programme will be tested to see how it would change the way emergency department doctors and nurses would care for a child. For example if it reduces mistakes, improves doctors’ confidence and is easy for them to use.

GET INVOLVED

I am a Parent/Child

Click below if you want to take part in our parent & children’s survey or find out how the public are helping in this study

I am a Radiologist

Click below to find out how you can help us as a radiologist

I am a Healthcare Professional

We are interested in experiences of paediatric emergency doctors, nurses and healthcare staff that work in children’s orthopaedic teams