P. Sakellaropoulos et al., Using component technologies for web based wavelet enhanced mammographic image visualization, MED INF IN, 25(3), 2000, pp. 171-181
The poor contrast detectability of mammography can be dealt with by domain
specific software visualization tools. Remote desktop client access and tim
e performance limitations of a previously reported visualization tool are a
ddressed, aiming at more efficient visualization of mammographic image reso
urces existing in web or PACS image servers. This effort is also motivated
by the fact that at present, web browsers do not support domain-specific me
dical image visualization. To deal with desktop client access the tool was
redesigned by exploring component technologies, enabling the integration of
stand alone domain specific mammographic image functionality in a web brow
sing environment (web adaptation). The integration method is based on Activ
eX Document Server technology. ActiveX Document is a part of Object Linking
and Embedding (OLE) extensible systems object technology, offering new ser
vices in existing applications. The standard DICOM 3.0 part 10 compatible i
mage-format specification Papyrus 3.0 is supported, in addition to standard
digitization formats such as TIFF. The visualization functionality of the
tool has been enhanced by including a fast wavelet transform implementation
, which allows for real time wavelet based contrast enhancement and denoisi
ng operations. Initial use of the tool with mammograms of various breast st
ructures demonstrated its potential in improving visualization of diagnosti
c mammographic features. Web adaptation and real time wavelet processing en
hance the potential of the previously reported tool in remote diagnosis and
education in mammography.