> Xray images down the wire sounds interesting but some queries arise
Some good and excellent points.
But a little off topic for GP-UK. Please flame me and I'll cease this thread.
> Most films eg chest are larger than screen size so we either see a smaller image
> or see a selected part only thus missing the ability to compare eg left side
> with right or follow down a margin without moving the section viewed. I find
> xrays in books or journals difficult to analyse. Will it be any easier on the
> net?
Indeed. What we are talking about here is a PACS system.
Picture Archiving and Communications System.
This is a large+expensive system, which acquires images from CT MR and
direct digital X-ray sets.
Images go to short term store on a RAID disk array.
Images are stored in a central archive server, which is typically an
optical disk jukebox.
The Hammersmith, the premier PACS site in the UK, has two TERAbytes of
on line store (yikes! - I hope your PCs don't get disk envy).
(i workded there for two months. Boast).
For primary DIAGNOSIS high resolution monitors and workstations are
in the X-ray department. These are typically 2000x2000 (called 2K monitors)
Even then, no-one seriously talks about doing mammograms on these. Too fine detail.
To do comparison of films, a multi-screen workstation is used.
One at the Hammersmith has four 'portrait' mode monitors.
You've raised a very good point - in fact X-ray film does have its uses,
in convenience of handling and speed of hanging on a load of lightboxes.
It is very, very hard to duplicate this speed and ease of use on a computer,
no matter how much you love computers.
If the radiologist can't get his morning reporting done in the same time,
she/he won't use the darned thing, and it will sit and moulder.
Dr. Nicola Strickland at the Hammersmith has done a lot of work on this -
on things like 'default display protocols' which hang the digital studies
in a similar fashion to the manual layout.
Anyone really interested in this should go to one of the Hammersmith Hospital
PACS Open Days. 95 quid well spent on a real glimpse into our future.
I went on one - you can see their PET scanner too!
A normal physicians viewing and REVIEW workstation has a 1K monitor
(hopefully, a special grey-scale monitor like a Simomed not a grotty job from Dixons).
To overcome the size problem, a 'magic glass' tool is used to zoom selected areas.
Many different manufacturers now produce these sorts of workstations.
Siemens, Imation(3M), Agfa, Philips to name a few.
We have two Philips Easyvisions already. These are impressive machines,
based on Sparc 5 workstations.
Anybody wanting to play with a 'magic glass' tool, and properly
'window and level' CT and MR scans can download the code for the Osiris viewer,
which we are very keen on, and are using on PCs.
http://www.expasy.hcuge.ch/www/UIN/osiris.html
Download the demo studies and the viewer, and please let me know your comments!
It's fun and will amaze your colleagues :-)
As an aside, the requirement is that images arrive at these workstations within 10 seconds.
That's one of the reasons why I'm working my backside off to get a 155Mbps ATM fibre
optic network in our hospital!
The network protocol for images is called DICOM.
Anybody wanting to play with a 'magic glass' tool, and properly
'window and level' CT and MR scans can download the code for the Osiris viewer,
which we are very keen on, and are using on PCs.
http://www.expasy.hcuge.ch/www/UIN/osiris.html
Download the demo studies and the viewer, and please let me know your comments!
It's fun and will amaze your colleagues :-)
It also loads TIFFs and GIFs
Now, for access in our clinics and wards,
and (this is my idea - absolutely NOT Trust or NHS policy) we could have
a 'technology demonstrator' of links to outlying clinics via INTRANET access.
(NOT Internet).
None of this is for diagnosis - for reporting and teaching/conferencing etc.
This is an idea whose time has come.
I wish I had the nous to set up a company to do it (any partners out there?)
Here are some interesting and innovative companies.
I got the last one only this morning!
http://www.webrad.com/
http://webrad.com/ (this is a DIFFERENT company called Analogic)
http://www.amicas.com
I'm just off right now to try out the Amicas Netscape plugin on my NT box.
John Hearns
ps. sorry to go on about my pet subject
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