#25 Practical Digital Imaging and PACS (1999 AAPM Summer School)

Author:  Anthony Seibert et al
ISBN:  9780944838921      ISBN10:  0944838928
Published:  1999 | 577 pp | Softcover

Price:   $ 85.00


  
  




The Physicist  |  January/February 2000


“We live in a digital world (in the sense that most things can be handled, stored and processed by a computer). Medical images are no exception and Picture Archiving and Communication System or PACS for short is the description for the computer network that handles transfer, display, processing and storage of the images. PACS offers many theoretical advantages: the images themselves are cheap and easy to transfer, they can be displayed in many locations at the same time and computer images suit modalities such as computed tomography and MRI that already produce images in digital format. However, the introduction of PACS and the ‘film-less radiology department’ has been much slower than anticipated. This is at least partially due to the lack of software that accommodates current clinical practice, missing interconnectivity with other information systems (pretty pictures alone are not sufficient for clinical evaluation) and the high cost of specialized hardware.

“The present publication tries to bridge the gap between expectations and reality. It is a compilation of 24 papers from distinguished authors who presented the material at the 1999 summer school of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. The fact that the material originated in a teaching context is evident in many contributions: they are easy to read and well illustrated. In its entirety the papers cover a wide field ranging from description of basic imaging tools (e.g., ‘Nuclear Medicine Imaging Technology’ or an ‘Update on Computed Tomography’) to image quality and the discussion of image formats (two chapters specifically on DICOM).

“As such, ‘Practical Digital Imaging and PACS’ is an excellent text to accompany and update a text book on radiological physics - a subject index would have been useful. It is a valuable resource for medical physicists, hospital based computer scientists and radiologists.” Tomas Kron Medical Physics Newcastle Mater Hospital