ArticleAnnals of family medicine2026
Diagnostic Performance of General Practitioners in Carotid Plaque Detection Using AI-Enhanced Point-of-Care Ultrasound After Systematic Training.
Article in Annals of family medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeWhile point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has been integrated into daily practice by general practitioners (GPs) in some countries, there is a paucity of literature documenting its use by Chinese GPs. Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted diagnosis is increasingly applied to imaging equipment. This study aims to explore the diagnostic performance of GPs in carotid plaque detection using AI-enhanced POCUS after systematic training.
methodsThis diagnostic accuracy trial was conducted in Shanghai, where 7 GPs received systematic training then recruited patients with high atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk during outpatient visits for free carotid plaque screening. We comprehensively evaluated their diagnostic performance using 2 approaches: per-patient (ie, assessed whether patients had any carotid plaque) and per-vessel (ie, determined plaque presence in any carotid vessel). Evaluation metrics included sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and the
resultsA total of 169 patients (mean age 69.6 years [SD 5.76]; 37.9% male) were included in this study. At the per-patient level, sensitivity was 0.87 (95% CI, 0.80-0.95); specificity was 0.91 (95% CI, 0.86-0.97); PPV was 0.89 (95% CI, 0.82-0.96); NPV was 0.89 (95% CI, 0.83-0.96); and the
conclusionOur findings indicate that, after systematic training, GPs can effectively perform carotid plaque screening using AI-enhanced POCUS within a clinical workflow in high-risk elderly populations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.