KEYWORDS: Medical imaging applications, Picture Archiving and Communication System, Imaging systems, Telecommunications, Medical imaging, Control systems, Networks, Data processing, Systems modeling, Human-machine interfaces
Telemedical systems are not practical for use in a clinical workflow unless they are able to communicate with the Picture
Archiving and Communications System (PACS). On the other hand, there are many medical imaging applications that
are not developed as telemedical systems. Some medical imaging applications do not support collaboration and some do
not communicate with the PACS and therefore limit their usability in clinical workflows. This paper presents a general
architecture based on a three-tier architecture model. The architecture and the components developed within it, transform
medical imaging applications into collaborative PACS-based telemedical systems. As a result, current medical imaging
applications that are not telemedical, not supporting collaboration, and not communicating with PACS, can be enhanced
to support collaboration among a group of physicians, be accessed remotely, and be clinically useful. The main
advantage of the proposed architecture is that it does not impose any modification to the current medical imaging
applications and does not make any assumptions about the underlying architecture or operating system.
KEYWORDS: Image compression, Medical imaging, Data transmission, Local area networks, Networks, Data communications, Image processing, Image transmission, Internet, Image storage
The standard format for medical imaging storage and transmission is Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine
(DICOM). Nowadays, and specifically with large amounts of medical images acquired by modern modalities, the need
for fast data transmission between DICOM application entities is evident. In some applications, particularly those aiming
to provide real-time services, this demand is critical. This paper introduces a method which provides a fast and simple
way of image transmission by utilizing the DICOM protocol. The current implementations of DICOM protocol usually
care more about connecting DICOM application entities. In the process of connecting two DICOM application entities,
the format of the transmission (Transfer Syntax) is agreed upon. In this crucial step, the two entities choose an encoding
that is supported by both and if one entity does not support compression the other one cannot use that option. In the
proposed method, we use a pair of interfaces to deal with this issue and provide a fast method for medical data
transmission between any two DICOM application entities. These interfaces use both compression and multi-threading
techniques to transfer the images. The interfaces can be used without any change to the current DICOM application
entities. In fact, the interfaces listen to the incoming messages from the DICOM application entities, intercept the
messages, and carry out the data transmission. The experimental results show about 22% speed-up in Local Area
Networks (LANs) and about 13-14 times speed-up in Wide Area Networks (WANs).
KEYWORDS: Medical imaging, Telemedicine, Internet, Image processing, Imaging systems, Data modeling, 3D image processing, Data centers, 3D visualizations, Picture Archiving and Communication System
This paper describes a remote real-time PACS-based telemedicine platform for clinical and diagnostic services delivered
at different care settings where the physicians, specialists and scientists may attend. In fact, the platform aims to provide
a PACS-based telemedicine framework for different medical image services such as segmentation, registration and
specifically high-quality 3D visualization. The proposed approach offers services which are not only widely accessible
and real-time, but are also secure and cost-effective. In addition, the proposed platform has the ability to bring in a realtime,
ubiquitous, collaborative, interactive meeting environment supporting 3D visualization for consultations, which
has not been well addressed with the current PACS-based applications. Using this ability, physicians and specialists can
consult with each other at separate places and it is especially helpful for settings, where there is no specialist or the
number of specialists is not enough to handle all the available cases. Furthermore, the proposed platform can be used as
a rich resource for clinical research studies as well as for academic purposes.
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