Best Online Resources to Improve Anatomy Knowledge
At first, understanding anatomy is a very essential key to diagnosing patients and to the practice of health and medicine. Secondly, learning how to interpret medical imaging and radiological anatomy is crucial for radiologists and forms the base for learning radiology.
Comparative table: 6 online anatomy atlas for medical imaging
We compared 6 top online anatomy resources including their pros and cons helping you improve your anatomy knowledge. Critera were chosen to evaluate:
- Content wealth and exhaustiveness (medical images, labels and languages)
- Accuracy and endorsement by the number of citations in scientific literature
As of July 2019:
| STATdx | e-Anatomy | Imaging anatomy | Radiopaedia | Visible Body | Anatomy.tv Primal's 3D atlas of human anatomy | |
| Number of images | NA | 13 486 | 4 197 | 2 487 | 3D mainly | 3D mainly |
| CT | NA | 5 006 | 2 985 | 2 058 | 18 | |
| MR | NA | 4 399 | 1 063 | 81 | 7 | 67 |
| CR | NA | 600 | 149 | 66 | ||
| Other | NA | 3 841 | 429 | 348 | ||
| Unique labeled anatomical parts | NA | 6 704 | 3 544 | 1 845 | 6 000 | over 6 000 |
| Landmarks | NA | 669 665 | 24 635 | 1 845 | 271 | 6 000 |
| Number of citations 6 scientific publications* | 14 | 17 | 0 | 20 | 10 | 10 |
| Languages | 1:english | 10: english, spanish, portuguese, german, italian, french, simplified chinese, russian, japanese and polish | 1: english | 1: english | 7: english, spanish, italian, german, french, simplified chinese and japanese | 1: english |
| Individual subscription price | $ 2 300 / year | $ 74,99 / year | Free | Free | $ 24,99 once | $ 945 / year |
* Number of citations (using Google Scholar) in articles and books (excluding websites) and related to anatomy or to the learning of anatomy and radiology (excluding pathology and case report) since 2015
What could be the most appropriate human anatomy resources for you ?
All those websites have a complementary role in improving radioanatomy knowledge: Visible Body and Anatomy.tv can be helpful to gain a deep understanding of the human anatomy. STATdx is very good at differential diagnosis. e-Anatomy is also one of the most comprehensive online resources regarding anatomy and medical imaging. Radiopaedia is a huge source for articles and cases related to radiology.
The best resource should be the best suited to your needs or a combination of various resources considering your needs for accuracy and for medical images.
Read below to have more details about these products.
Importance of anatomy in radiology
“Anatomy should rightly be regarded as the firm foundation of the whole art of medicine and its essential preliminary.” Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543).
Nevertheless, it is not that simple to learn while practicing! Indeed, radioanatomy is such a wealth of complexity and richness that it would be unrealistic to expect that radiologists and radiology residents should know it by heart. Moreover, there are so much details we can now see on medical images such as CT or MR images that it is difficult to find an anatomical reference precise enough.
More information on selected online radioanatomy atlases
- STATdx:
STATdx is a tool to help in diagnosis and decision making in radiology. It gives access to the collective clinical experience and knowledge and provides thousands of expert references and differential diagnoses, clinical cases, images and anatomy modules.
⊕ A large collection of common and complex diagnoses
⊕ Mixes text / images / cases / tools
⊕ Used by almost every US radiology resident
⊝ Quite expensive (but resident program pricing available)
⊝ Anatomy content not so rich compared to diseases / diagnoses content
⊝ Available in English only
- e-Anatomy:
e-Anatomy is an interactive human anatomy atlas that combines medical imaging (CT, MRI, Radio), 6,000+ anatomic structures and more than 670,000 medical labels, and comes with a quiz function with easy self-assessment. It is trusted by radiologists, students and medical imaging professionals.
⊕ Basic self-testing available through removal and revealing of labels and images can be exported as PNG files
⊕ Contains valuable graphical content, particularly from a medical imaging standpoint
⊕ Images are of high quality and can be easily manipulated
⊕ Scientific reference
⊝ Navigation is a bit challenging due to the complexity of knowledge density
- Imaging anatomy:
Imaging anatomy is a free online normal imaging anatomy dedicated to radiologists and radiologic technologists.
⊕ Radioanatomy modules with 3D and MPR images
⊕ Customizable user interface with several options to display images and labels
⊕ Free!
⊝ Missing some CT / MR regions (such as brain MRI) and detailed labelling (not updated since 2017)
⊝ Available in English only
⊝ User interface may be improved
- Radiopaedia:
Radiopaedia is an open-edit educational radiology resource which has been primarily compiled by radiologists and radiology trainees from across the world.
⊕ Free
⊕ Scientific reference
⊕ Many articles / cases also available
⊝ Only a few anatomy modules available
⊝ Basic labelling of images with numbers over the images, requiring scrolling down to match the anatomical label
⊝ Available in English only
⊝ Basic user interface that only allows image series scrolling with no customization
- Visible Body:
- Visible Body creates educational 3D medical apps that help to better understand human anatomy and physiology.⊕ High-quality medical illustrations come to life with 3D functionality
⊝ Lack of radiology images, limited quizzing options and minimal labeling
⊝ 3D modeling sometimes inaccurate for small or intricate anatomical parts, which may not satisfy healthcare professionals in the medical imaging practice
=> Visible Body products are not clinically oriented anatomy reference books. They do not integrate at depth the study of anatomy and physiology into actual clinical practice. The strength is portability and the ability for the user to identify anatomical structures and related physiological processes and to manipulate this information to better understand and learn gross anatomy.
- Anatomy.tv:
Anatomy.tv is a medically accurate and detailed 3D graphic rendering of human anatomy based on imaging data. Augmented reality for 3D real time has been integrated lately.
⊕ Great learning tool with interactive 3D models
⊝ Little medical imaging content
⊝ 3D modeling sometimes inaccurate for small or intricated anatomical parts, which may not satisfy healthcare professionals in the medical imaging practice
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