Replacement of cinefilm with a digital archive and review network - Initial experience of a large catheterization laboratory

The replacement of cinefilm with digital cardiac angiography has accelerate d significantly in recent years with the development and widespread adoptio n of the DICOM standard for interchange of procedure image data. While the acceptance of the Compact Disk-Recordable (CD-R) media has provided the opp ortunity for numerous laboratories to eliminate cinefilm in all its functio ns, the task is more complex for larger catheterization laboratories which require the use of high speed networks and automated libraries. The Cardiac Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic has implemented the final stages of a large- scale network and archive which meets a large institution's demanding requi rements for access, speed, and storage for high volumes of digital cardiac angiographic images. Initial experience with the system demonstrates that t his approach will be a successful one for the elimination of cinefilm and t he employment of digital imaging and networking technology. In addition, di rect access to digital image records will also facilitate the integration o f image data with other clinical information acquired and stored in a digit al format.