RESUMEN
For making medical decisions, healthcare professionals require that all necessary information is both correct and easily available. Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology refers to the use of information technology that supports the creation and sharing or exchange of information, including data and images, during the complex workflow performed in an Anatomic Pathology department from specimen reception to report transmission and exploitation. Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology is supported by standardization efforts toward knowledge representation for sharable and computable clinical information. The goal of the international integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative is precisely specifying how medical informatics standards should be implemented to meet specific health care needs and making systems integration more efficient and less expensive. The IHE Anatomic Pathology initiative was launched to implement the best use of medical informatics standards in order to produce, share and exchange machine-readable structured reports and their evidences (including whole slide images) within hospitals and across healthcare facilities. DICOM supplements 122 and 145 provide flexible object information definitions dedicated respectively to specimen description and WSI acquisition, storage and display. The profiles "Anatomic Pathology Reporting for Public Health" (ARPH) and "Anatomic Pathology Structured Report" (APSR) provide standard templates and transactions for sharing or exchanging structured reports in which textual observations - encoded using PathLex, an international controlled vocabulary currently being mapped to SNOMED CT concepts - may be bound to digital images or regions of interest in images. Current implementations of IHE Anatomic Pathology profiles in North America, France and Spain demonstrate the applicability of recent advances in standards for Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology. The use of machine-readable format of Anatomic Pathology information supports the development of computer-based decision support as well as secondary use of Anatomic Pathology information for research or public health.
Asunto(s)
Diagnóstico por Imagen/normas , Sistemas de Información en Hospital/normas , Procesamiento de Imagen Asistido por Computador/métodos , Informática Médica/normas , Telepatología/normas , Terminología como Asunto , Toma de Decisiones Asistida por Computador , Francia , Humanos , América del Norte , España , Integración de Sistemas , Vocabulario ControladoRESUMEN
Big virtual microscopy images (80K x 60K pixels and larger) are usually stored using the JPEG2000 image compression scheme. Diagnostic quantification, based on image analysis, might be faster if performed on compressed data (approx. 20 times less the original amount), representing the coefficients of the wavelet transform. The analysis of possible edge detection without reverse wavelet transform is presented in the paper. Two edge detection methods, suitable for JPEG2000 bi-orthogonal wavelets, are proposed. The methods are adjusted according calculated parameters of sigmoid edge model. The results of model analysis indicate more suitable method for given bi-orthogonal wavelet.
Asunto(s)
Diagnóstico por Imagen/métodos , Procesamiento de Imagen Asistido por Computador/métodos , Algoritmos , Membrana Celular/patología , Gráficos por Computador , Computadores , Técnicas Citológicas , Humanos , Modelos Estadísticos , Modelos Teóricos , Programas InformáticosRESUMEN
The COST Action IC0604 "Telepathology Network in Europe" (EURO-TELEPATH) is an initiative of the COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) framework, supported by the Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7), of the European Union will be running from 2007 to 2011 and is aimed to coordinate research efforts to develop the most adequate technological framework for the management of multimedia electronic healthcare records (data and images) applied to Anatomic Pathology. Sixteen countries are participating in EURO-TELEPATH. Activities are organized in four Working Groups (WGs): WG1 - Pathology Business Modeling, WG2 - Informatics Standards in Pathology, WG3 - Images: Analysis, Processing, Retrieval and Management, and WG4 - Technology and Automation in Pathology. During the first year of work, the collaboration between software engineers, computer scientists, pathologists and other clinicians has been essential to detect three main areas of interest in digital pathology research: virtual microscopy scanning solutions, health informatics standards, and image processing and analysis. Research in these areas is essential to a correct approach to telepathology, including primary diagnosis, and secondary or teleconsultation services. Managing microscopic pathology images (virtual slides) is a challenge to existing information systems, mainly due to its large size, large number, and complex interpretation. Regarding interoperability, the integration of pathology reports and images into eHealth records is an essential objective that research groups should consider. Promoting participation in standards bodies (DICOM, IHE, HL7, IHTSDO) is an essential part of the project work. Understanding the business process of pathology departments in daily practice, including healthcare, education, research, and quality control activities, is the starting point to be sure that standardization efforts converge with user needs. Following a recent IHE proposal, coordination with public health services like national or regional tumor registries must also be supported. Virtual or digital slides are fostering the use of image processing and analysis in pathology not only for research purposes, but also in daily practice. Nowadays, further discussion is needed on the adequacy of current existing technical solutions, including for instance quality of images obtained by scanners, or the efficiency of image analysis applications.
Asunto(s)
Investigación Biomédica , Atención al Paciente , Europa (Continente) , Humanos , Informática Médica/normas , Integración de Sistemas , TelemedicinaRESUMEN
Extremely large medical images, like ones of virtual slide microscopy, are beyond some limitations of the DICOM standard (e.g., a 4 Gbyte barrier, caused by 32-bit architecture). Some solutions and trade-offs have been already proposed and included in the DICOM standard (e.g., usage of JPEG2000 image compression standard, JPEG2000 interactive protocol [JPIP] and division of the images into smaller parts for placing them in the PACS). These new features lead to implementation of alternative interaction solutions simultaneously in the same PACS to serve both images of typical size (e.g., radiological) and large size virtual slide microscopy images. The paper deals with problems of (a) constructing a data and interaction model of images within PACS, (b) searching for criteria to assess image content complexity and to reach an efficient division of virtual slide microscopy images into tiles; (c) providing both the conventional DICOM services and the image interchange using JPIP.
Asunto(s)
Microscopía , Sistemas de Información Radiológica/organización & administración , Algoritmos , Modelos TeóricosRESUMEN
Building a patient centered National e-Health system has been a challenging task for the Health Ministry of Lithuania in 2005-2006. The first and the main task is to design and to build the infrastructure of the National e-health system. The paper presents the architecture of the system, which aims: (a) to integrate already designed and implemented information systems, (b) to communicate with other national information systems, (c) to provide services (basic ones at the initial stage) for users and (d) to support further e-health systems development in long-term perspective. The system design is based on the HISA approach. The core of the system consists of on-line data storage (including classifiers and registries), of the automation and integration layers for health care processes, of a security layer, a system control layer and a client layer. After having defined the concepts of processes and activities, of the security, of the registries and classifiers within the system and the Electronic Health Records System, then follows the implementation stage. Until the end of 2006 it will include the core of the national e-Health infrastructure and the part of the information system providing basic services for the pilot Lithuanian healthcare institutions.
Asunto(s)
Sistemas de Computación , Sistemas de Registros Médicos Computarizados/organización & administración , LituaniaRESUMEN
The heart disease is related to the alterations in the biological tissue of its muscles. The myocardium alterations have been analysed and evaluated on ultrasound images. The statistical parameters of the heart texture on the defined region of interest present information about the state of myocardium. There are hundreds of the texture parameters, which could be used to evaluate the heart tissue structure. The goal was to choose the most informative ones by applying the quantitative analysis technique. The Fisher statistics has been applied for hypothesis testing to define the most informative texture parameters. The quantitative analysis proved that the texture parameters of the myocardium tissue can be estimated significantly, when the sample size of ROI is not less than 900-1000 pixels. The sample cannot be enhanced by combining images on in the diastolic and systolic phases. To evaluate the state of the myocardium the following statistical parameters can be used on four chamber view images: the percentiles of order 0.01, 0.1, 0.5, grey level run length non-uniformity (in all directions: horizontally, vertically, 45(0), 135(0)), except a lateral wall of the left ventricle, the entropy of the two-dimensional probability distribution, the parameter of the two-dimensional probability distribution, which defines the mean distance between grey levels. On parasternal images the informative statistical parameters are: grey level run length non-uniformity (in all directions: horizontally, vertically, 45(0), 135(0)), grey level non-uniformity, the entropy of the two-dimensional probability distribution applied to the septum only.
Asunto(s)
Ecocardiografía , Miocardio , Corazón , Cardiopatías , Humanos , UltrasonidoRESUMEN
The heart disease is caused by the alterations in the biological tissue of its muscles. The myocardium alterations have been analysed and evaluated on echocardiographic images. The statistical parameters of the heart texture on the defined region of interest present information about the state of myocardium. There are hundreds of the texture parameters, which could be used to evaluate the heart tissue structure. The goal was to choose the most informative ones by applying the statistical analysis techniques. The Fisher statistics has been applied for hypothesis testing to define the most informative texture parameters. The data for the certain position of a transducer has been compiled for sound and heart patients. Two kinds of echocardiographic images (native and hormonic ones) have been used for analysis. The most informative texture parameters on evaluating changes in myocardium structure proved to be: local mean intensity, the form of local histogram, local variance and run-length nomuniformity. The statistical analysis was limited to the measurements of the most informative position of the transducer from the compiled database.
Asunto(s)
Ecocardiografía/métodos , Miocardio/ultraestructura , Ecocardiografía/estadística & datos numéricos , Humanos , Interpretación de Imagen Asistida por Computador , Modelos EstructuralesRESUMEN
Medical digital images have informational redundancy. Both the amount of memory for image storage and their transmission time could be reduced if image compression techniques are applied. The techniques are divided into two groups: lossless (compression ratio does not exceed 3 times) and lossy ones. Compression ratio of lossy techniques depends on visibility of distortions. It is a variable parameter and it can exceed 20 times. A compression study was performed to evaluate the compression schemes, which were based on the wavelet transform. The goal was to develop a set of recommendations for an acceptable compression ratio for different medical image modalities: ultrasound cardiac images and X-ray angiographic images. The acceptable image quality after compression was evaluated by physicians. Statistical analysis of the evaluation results was used to form a set of recommendations.
Asunto(s)
Angiografía , Ecocardiografía , Corazón/diagnóstico por imagen , Procesamiento de Imagen Asistido por Computador , Procesamiento de Señales Asistido por Computador , Ultrasonografía , Interpretación Estadística de Datos , Humanos , Modelos Cardiovasculares , Distribuciones EstadísticasRESUMEN
The magnetic resonance (MR) imaging device outperforms the quality of CT images for diagnosis related to soft tissues. The cartilage structure is intermediary between soft tissue and bones. The methodology to compare visualisation quality of two different CT and MR techniques was developed. It enabled to evaluate the equipment priority. Before carrying out the comparative analysis of cartilage structure images the method of reducing radiation dose for a CT examination has been developed. It was based on relationship between CT adjustment parameter (reconstruction increment) and image quality. The method enabled to carry out CT examination with a considerably reduced radiation dose for a patient and the medical personnel, taking part in the experiment.