A real-time telemedicine system using a medical ultrasound image sequence on a low bit-rate network

A new telemedicine system that enables real-time telemedicine using a medic al ultrasound image sequence on a digital network of up to 128 kbps is prop osed. This system compresses an image sequence by our original joint photog raphic expert group (JPEG) compression library that adapts for real-time an d point-to-point communication. Moreover, this system deals with three tran smission modes to provide smooth telemedicine and two kinds of transmission images. The three transmission modes available include real-time teleconfe rencing between the remote expert at a diagnosis site and the doctor and a patient at a patient site, real-time remote instruction from the remote exp ert to obtain an appropriate medical ultrasound image sequence for the diag nosis and real-time transmission of the medical ultrasound image sequence f or the remote expert to make the diagnosis. One transmission image contains an entire medical ultrasound image with a low frame rate, therefore the re mote expert call diagnose a disease using this medical ultrasound image seq uence that contains tissue and other information. The other image is of the region of interest (ROI) of a medical ultrasound image sequence for diagno sis. The ROI is specified by the remote expert at the diagnosis site to red uce the size of the medical ultrasound image. As a result, the proposed sys tem transmits the ROI with a high frame rate. Through international telomed icine experiments using medical ultrasound image sequence consulting expert s, we can state with sufficient certainty that the proposed system can prov ide the required performance to enable medical experts to perform real-time telemedicine on a digital network or over the Internet.