RADIOLOGIST EVALUATION OF A MULTISPECTRAL IMAGE COMPRESSION ALGORITHMFOR MAGNETIC-RESONANCE IMAGES

With the advent of teleradiology and picture archiving and communicati on systems (PACS), the expense and time required for image transmissio n and long term image archiving become important. The use of validated image compression algorithms can greatly reduce these costs. A lossy, multispectral image compression scheme at compression ratios (CR) of 25:1 and 32:1 was used for a set of 26 different patient MR exams. The original and compressed/decompressed (CD) image sets were evaluated i n a blinded fashion by four radiologists in two phases. The main objec tive was to determine whether radiologic interpretation would vary bet ween the two types of CD image sets and the corresponding originals. I n general, the compression algorithm caused a slight decrease in image quality; however, the interpretation of pathology did not change betw een the original and CD image sets. In only one case at the maximum CR = 32 did one of four radiologists change the interpretation of pathol ogy after CD. In this study, lossy multispectral image compression of MR images at CR = 25 maintained diagnostic integrity. This could play a significant role in image storage and communications. Copyright (C) 1998 by W.B. Saunders Company.