Main description:

This volume contains the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) in Medicine" held in Evian, France, October 14- 26, 1990. The program committee of the institute consisted of H.K. Huang (Director), Osman Ratib, Albert Bakker, and Gerd Witte. This institute brought together approximately 90 participants from 15 countries. These proceedings are the accumulation of eight years of research and development results in PACS by various dedicated groups throughout the world. The purpose of this institute was to review the most recent technology available for PACS and some clinical results. The readers should notice the remarkable advances in this field by comparing the contents in these proceedings with those in a previous institute on "Pictorial Information Systems in Medicine" held August 27 - September 7, 1984 in Braunlage/Harz, Federal Republic of Germany, and published as Vol. 19 in this series. The institute was organized according to four categories: PACS components and system integration, PACS and related research in various countries and manufacturing companies, clinical experience and research support, and participants' scientific communications. In PACS components, we included image acquisition, workstations, data storage and networking. In system integration, topics on interfaces between Hospital Information System (HIS), Radiology Information System (RIS) and PACS, clinical reports, the ACR/NEMA standard, databases, reliability, and system integration were discussed. This lecture series emphasized the technical detail and "how to" aspects.

Contents:

PACS Overview.- PACS Research and Development - A Review and Perspective.- Acquisition.- Principles of Computed Radiography.- New Developments in Image Acquisition Systems: Advanced Multiple Beam Equalization Radiography.- Acquisition Interface for Computed Radiography.- PACS Image Acquisition: Film Scanners.- Automatic Acquisition of CT, MR, and US Images for PACS.- Display Stations.- Display Workstation: Hardware Architecture.- PACS Workstation: User Interface Design.- Reading Room Design for PACS.- Database and Storage.- Data Storage and Compression.- Database Architecture and Design for PACS.- PAPYRUS: A Portable Image File Format.- Communication Networks.- Teleradiology and Network Strategies.- Three Tiered Network Architecture for PACS Clusters.- System Integration.- An Introduction to the ACR-NEMA Standards.- Integration Issues in PACS.- PACS Reliability Issues.- HIS and RIS and PACS.- Clinical Experience.- Clinical Experience with a Multimedia Workstation at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, Canada.- PACS Clinical Experience at Georgetown University.- Clinical Experience - 16 Months of HU-PACS.- PACS - Clinical Experience at UCLA.- Clinical Evaluation of PACS at the University of Pennsylvania.- PACS Research in Federal Government and Private Industry.- NIH Supported PACS Related Research.- Digital Imaging Network Systems in the U.S. Military: Past, Present, Future.- Medical Diagnostic Imaging Support Systems for Military Medicine.- CommView (c) - A System from AT&T and Philips - A Technical Status and Evolution Plan.- GE PACS Strategy and Development.- to Hitachi PACS.- PACS Research and Development in Various Countries.- The Vienna SMZO Project.- PACS and PACS-Related Research in Belgium.- PACS at the University Hospital Leuven.- PACS Activities at the University Hospital of Rennes.- PACS and Related Research in France.- PACS in Germany.- The Berlin Communication System (BERKOM).- PACS and Related Research in Italy.- PACS and Related Research in Japan.- PACS and Related Research in the Netherlands.- PACS and Related Developments in Sweden.- PACS and Related Research in Switzerland.- Medical PACS Research in Turkey.- PACS and Related Research in the United Kingdom.- European Collaborative PACS Projects.- HIPACS: "Hospital Integrated Picture Achiving and Communication System", an R&D Effort of the European Communities.- The HELIOS European Project on Software Engineering.- TELEMED Project.- ISCAMI: A European Collaboration on PACS.- PACS-MACS: Operation Evaluation and Basic Requirements for Prospective Evolution of PACS Technology.- COST-B2: Quality Assurance of Nuclear Medicine Software.- Participants' Scientific Communications.- CHAMPOLION: an Image File Format Translator.- A Nuclear Medicine PACS and RIS.- Storage and Retrieval of Medical Image Data, Relationship to Image Processing and Analysis.- Subband Coding of DSA Images.- PACS in Britain: A Radiologist's Perspective.- Beyond PACS: The Electronic Triage System.- A Multimodality Medical Image Interpretation System as a PACS Component.- Interfacing PACS with the DVA Information System.- Tools for Analysis of Requirements for PACS.- The Design and Development of an HIS-PACS Interface: Utilizing the Efforts of ACR-NEMA WGVIII.- The OSIRIS User Interface for Manipulating Medical Images.- Dedicated Software Packages to Support PACS Research.- Modelling and Simulation: Indispensable Tools for PACS Development.- Image Registration and Communication Standards in Medical Imaging.- Filmless Nuclear Medicine Department.- Factors Affecting Detection of Pulmonary Nodules in Digital Images.- Distributed Acquisition of Digital Images in a Rural Setting.- Application of a PACS in Daily Routine.- List of Authors.