Data Management and Visualization Issues in a Fully Digital Echocardiography Laboratory

Abstract

This paper presents a PACS solution for echocardiography laboratories, denominated as Himage, that provides a cost-efficient digital archive, and enables the acquisition, storage, transmission and visualization of DICOM cardiovascular ultrasound sequences. The core of our approach is the implementation of a DICOM private transfer syntax designed to support any video encoder installed on the operating system. This structure provides great flexibility concerning the selection of an encoder that best suits the specifics of a particular imaging modality or working scenario. The major advantage of the proposed system stems from the high compression rate achieved by video encoding the ultrasound sequences at a proven diagnostic quality. This highly efficient encoding process ensures full online availability of the ultrasound studies and, at the same time, enables medical data transmission over low-bandwidth channels that are often encountered in long range telemedicine sessions. We herein propose an imaging solution that embeds a Web framework with a set of DICOM services for image visualization and manipulation, which, so far, have been traditionally restricted to intranet environments.