clunie@ohsuhcx.ohsu.edu (David) (11/07/90)
I wish to propose that a new group be established for the widespread dissemination of interesting radiologic cases. It has long been the practice of Radiology departments to establish teaching files containing the many interesting common or unusual conditions and their radiologic manifestations. Traditionally the medium of storage has of course been film. With the increasing trend towards the use of primarily digital media, and the ease with which conventional images can be digitized even if they weren't from a CT, MRI, DSA, or ultrasound to start with, it is becoming sensible to store and disseminate selected interseting images from an examination or series of examinations of a patient in such a digital form. At present, many departments and individuals do not have the storage capacity, nor the desire, to archive the relatively large amount of information that such a practice would generate. The network on the other hand, provides a "transient" relatively high bandwidth means of disseminating CAREFULLY SELECTED cases to a much wider audience than ones own department. Selected sites could archive such information at their discretion, providing anonymous ftp if they so desire. Therefore I propose that a new group be so established. I would suggest that such a group be MODERATED in order to minimize the duplication of pathologic entities that could easily occur and swamp the group, to take all reasonable care to ensure that the anonymity of the patients involved was preserved, to ensure that the images were of high quality, were relevant, and were presented in a standard and compressed format, and to catalog and ACR code the cases appropriately. It is my opinion that such a group would do much to improve the dissemination of radiologic information across the world, and provide a unique teaching resource that is currently unavailable in any shape or form. With careful moderation the bandwidth occupied by such a group could be kept relatively low - after all this is rather a specialized field. I would encourage anyone interested in this proposal to reply to me, and furthermore, I would appreciate it if they would specify what format images they would have available. Direct digital transfer of images from the CT, MR, etc is necessary to maintain quality, and information concerning any proprietary format would be appreciated. It may be necessary for the moderator to deal with non-disclosure agreements with any companies involved in order to maximize the range of readable formats. The format I would propose for dissemination would be compressed TIFF files. These are adequate, readable by almost anything, contain tags for commentary, and about as small as possible (without loss). I am open to suggestions about this but if I had my way, I would take a lot of convincing that another format is preferrable. I might add that I would be prepared to moderate this group if others feel that this is appropriate. I look forward to hearing from you. Regards ... David