We evaluate a compression scheme that exploits inter-slice redundancy in medical imaging that is compatible with the JPEG 2000 core coding system extensions (part 2). The scheme consists of applying a decorrelating transform in the cross-slice vertical direction subsequently compressing each slice with a core part 1 JPEG 2000 coder. The rates for each slice are chosen according to a heuristic log-based allocation algorithm. Two transforms were considered, the KLT and the DWT 9/spl times/7. A gain of up to 4-4 dB in RMSE was achieved using the DWT 9/spl times/7 over a baseline JPEG 2000 system that uses no decorrelating transform.