Application of Multiprotocol Medical Imaging Communications and an Extended DICOM WADO Service in a Teleradiology Architecture

The Virtual Reality Radiology Workstation: Current Technology and Future Applications

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology hold potential across many disciplines in medicine to expand the delivery of education and healthcare. VR-AR applications in radiology, in particular, have gained prominence and have demonstrated advantages in many areas within the field. Recently, VR software has emerged to redesign the physical radiology workstation (ie, reading room) to expand the possibilities of diagnostic interpretation. Given the novelty of this technology, there is limited research investigating the potential applications of a simulated radiology workstation. In this review article, we explore VR-simulated reading room technology in its current form and illustrate the practical applications this technology will bring to future radiologists and learners. We also discuss the limitations and barriers to adopting this technology that must be overcome to truly understand its potential benefits. VR reading room technology offers great potential in radiology, but further research is needed to appreciate its benefits and identify areas for improvement. The findings and insights presented in this review contribute to the ongoing discourse on future technological advancements in radiology and healthcare, offering valuable recommendations for further research and practical implementation.

SmartWADO: an Extensible WADO Middleware for Regional Medical Image Sharing

Medical image sharing is an important problem in modern radiology, with wide applications in Internet and mobile devices. Some important features need to be added and optimized to medical image sharing. In this paper, we present an extensible Web Access to DICOM Persistent Objects (WADO) middleware based on image cache and real-time Web monitor technology for regional medical image sharing. We first develop the extension method of WADO standard and workflow of extended WADO service. Then, we design a medical image cache method to improve the performance of medical image on-demand transmission. Using the real-time monitor can discover the performance bottlenecks and optimized critical points. The experimental results show that the middleware effectively delivers medical images and reports to Web clients over the Internet, regardless of the platform used for access. It can be deployed in one hospital to provide WADO service to medical workers and also can be applied to regional picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) to transmit medical images and reports to Internet users in a way that is transparent to end-user applications.