Universal interface for exchange of medical images via magneto-optical discs

Digital images are the ever-growing basis of modern medical imaging and treatment. Despite the advent of the DICOM 3.0 standard for medical image communication it still requires cumbersome efforts to export images from imaging modalities to other computer systems. This is true especially for smaller institutions, which often have limited resources for standardized image transfer. To gain access even to these data we developed an exchange interface on the basis of magneto-optical discs (MO-discs), as they are usually available in most of the imaging modalities in use today. Unfortunately images on MO-discs are usually stored in formats specific for each manufacturer. Therefore special routines to access the data on MO-discs had to be developed for each company or even each scanner. Over 10,000 CT and MRI images including their header information from different General Electric and Siemens scanners were extracted successfully from MO-discs. The interface proved to be reliable and easy to handle by technicians. Support of additional manufacturers and of the DICOM 3.0 standard are work in progress. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.