Ross Robert M, Corry David B
Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
BMC Pulm Med. 2007 Oct 23;7:15. doi: 10.1186/1471-2466-7-15.
Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) has become an important modality for the evaluation and management of patients with a diverse array of medical problems. However, interpreting these tests is often difficult and time consuming, requiring significant expertise.
We created a computer software program (XINT) that assists in CPET interpretation. The program uses an integrative approach as recommended in the Official Statement of the American Thoracic Society/American College of Chest Physicians (ATS/ACCP) on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing. In this paper we discuss the principles behind the software. We also provide the detailed logic in an accompanying file (Additional File 1). The actual program and the open source code are also available free over the Internet at http://www.xint.org. For convenience, the required download files can also be accessed from this article.
To test the clinical usefulness of XINT, we present the computer generated interpretations of the case studies discussed in the ATS/ACCP document in another accompanying file (Additional File 2). We believe the interpretations are consistent with the document's criteria and the interpretations given by the expert panel.
Computers have become an integral part of modern life. Peer-reviewed scientific journals are now able to present not just medical concepts and experimental studies, but actual functioning medical interpretive software. This has enormous potential to improve medical diagnoses and patient care. We believe XINT is such a program that will give clinically useful interpretations when used by the medical community at large.
心肺运动试验（CPET）已成为评估和管理患有各种医学问题患者的重要手段。然而，解读这些测试往往困难且耗时，需要专业知识。
我们创建了一个辅助CPET解读的计算机软件程序（XINT）。该程序采用了美国胸科学会/美国胸科医师学会（ATS/ACCP）关于心肺运动试验的官方声明中推荐的综合方法。在本文中，我们讨论了该软件背后的原理。我们还在随附文件（补充文件1）中提供了详细逻辑。实际程序和开源代码也可在互联网上免费获取，网址为http://www.xint.org。为方便起见，所需的下载文件也可从本文获取。
为测试XINT的临床实用性，我们在另一个随附文件（补充文件2）中展示了该软件对ATS/ACCP文件中讨论的案例研究的计算机生成解读。我们认为这些解读与文件标准以及专家小组给出的解读一致。
计算机已成为现代生活不可或缺的一部分。经过同行评审的科学期刊现在不仅能够呈现医学概念和实验研究，还能展示实际运行的医学解读软件。这对于改善医学诊断和患者护理具有巨大潜力。我们相信XINT就是这样一个程序，当被广大医学界使用时，它将给出具有临床实用性的解读。
