MANAGEMENT AND TRANSMISSION OF MEDICAL IM AGES - A SURVEY OF THE MAINSTANDARDS

Use of digital images is growing in medical imaging. To be efficient, up-to-date concepts such as distributed informatics and client/server architecture must be used. Interoperability and networks adapted to th e data involved in medical imaging are prerequisites to the implementa tion of such concepts. This necessitates official and de facto standar ds. Users of medical imaging should be aware of these standards and in sist on the implementation of such standards on imaging equipment. Thi s paper presents a survey of the main standards suitable for medical i mage management and transmission. Particular attention is focused on D ICOM which is becoming the worldwide recognized standard in the field of medical imaging.