R. Thomas Bergeron

Cholesteatoma vs. Cholesterol Granuloma of the Petrous Apex

Lesions involving the petrous apex are rarely encountered in clinical practice. This directly affects the ability of the otolaryngologist to diagnose and effectively treat these lesions. Greater physician awareness and increased technologic capability are leading to more effective management of pathologic conditions involving this area of the temporal bone.

Design Considerations For Image Viewstations

There are a number of institutions and equipment manufacturers developing PAC systems or components of such systems. Much effort at our medical center has gone into the development of a workstation for radiologists, and this has been one of the primary devices built by others as well. As a result, diagnostic viewing stations are in operation and their designs are being refined. We have begun to examine the problem posed by the large number of viewing devices which may be required to satisfy the needs of the physicians and clinicians who refer patients to Radiology and want to see the studies which have been performed. Currently, this function is supported by a large number of film viewboxes and alternators both in the Radiology Department and in other hospital locations. It would be prohibitively expensive to replace all such viewing devices with diagnostic workstations, so we have considered the possible alternatives. We call this class of electronic viewing device the image viewstation. The goal of the design of an image viewstation is to satisfy user requirements at reasonable cost. However, we also need to design a device which can be interfaced to a network easily. This has led us to consider systems with both analog and digital image transmission. The former has the advantage of speed, the latter the desired full dynamic range and resolution. To a large extent, the method chosen is network dependent. This paper discusses the designs we have envisioned, the reasons we have chosen them, and how they might be implemented.

Interactive Multimodality Display For M/NET On-Line PACS System

The increased volume of diagnostic images which are electronic in nature has resulted in a need to improve the time consuming and costly manual means of handling these images. An electronic image viewing station for the M/NET PACS system has been developed by MEDINET, INC. The main design focus of the M/NET viewing station is its easy-to-use applications software. Its hardware and software design is presented in this paper.

Digital Image Viewing Stations: Radiologist Interests And Attitudes

In order to provide a PAC system which will appeal to, and be used by our Radiology staff, we have surveyed their attitudes about digital imaging in general and viewing sta-tions in particular. We anticipate installing a number of these stations in the full PACS, and we want these stations to provide improvement over the way we currently handle digital images. For these reasons, we felt it necessary to ask the radiologists who will be using the viewing systems what features and functions they would like to have available. The faculty, fellows, and residents in our Radiology department were asked to complete a questionnaire about digital imaging and workstations for viewing. They were asked to comment on existing viewing systems (i.e. CT consoles , nuclear imaging systems, and DIVA consoles). This paper discusses the results of the survey along with our ideas on how best we can implement the functions needed and requested.