Digital storage and retrieval: the future in echocardiography
Open Access
Abstract
It seems we have been on the threshold of the digital revolution in echocardiography for some time and yet the vast majority of echocardiographic studies are still stored and reviewed from videotape. Why should this be? Several large echocardiography laboratories have had digital storage for over a decade now,' and the capability for sophisticated all digital storage and retrieval is being offered by several vendors. Nevertheless, there is an "energy of activation" that most laboratories have not been able to muster to make the leap into the digital era of echocardiography. This review article outlines the state of the art in digital echocardiography, covering formatting standards, compression choices, and advances in computer instrumentation. It is hoped that this will provide a practical guide to the choices that we as echocardiographers have to make as we move into the era of digital echocardiography.Keywords
This publication has 9 references indexed in Scilit:
- Digital storage of echocardiograms offers superior image quality to analog storage, even with 20:1 digital compression: Results of the digital echo record access studyJournal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 1996
- Digital compression of echocardiograms: Impact on quantitative interpretation of color doppler velocityJournal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 1996
- JPEG compression of digital echocardiographic images: Impact on image qualityJournal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 1995
- The DICOM image formatting standard: What it means for echocardiographersJournal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 1995
- Application of wavelet compression to digitized radiographs.American Journal of Roentgenology, 1994
- Thoracic CT images: effect of lossy image compression on diagnostic accuracy.Radiology, 1994
- A Digital Echocardiographic LaboratoryJournal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 1994
- Digital Formatting Standards in Medical Imaging: A Primer for EchocardiographersJournal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 1994
- Lossy compression in nuclear medicine images.1993