PC-based medical image viewer/browser for nuclear medicine imaging

Abstract

Nuclear Medicine is one of the earliest imaging modalities using computers for acquisition, processing, storage and display of digital images. Generally, computer software used to view the nuclear medicine images will be supported by gamma camera vendor and cannot be modified. ChulaView program is a medical image viewer software that developed for nuclear medicine images using Delphi computer language. The capabilities of this software are PC-based, modifiable, support the standard medical image formats-Interfile and DICOM formats, and many processing tools such as zoom, change colour table, cine display, rotate and etc. ChulaView program was evaluated by agreement test -Kappa test- that compared with commercial computer program. The samples were 100 nuclear medicine studies: 30 bone studies, 30 lung studies, 30 vascular studies, and 10 myocardial perfusion studies. There were 3 parts of agreement: image quality, image quantity (number of lesion) andclinical diagnostic results. The results show that firstly, image quality was excellent for lung studies, vascular studies and myocardium perfusion studies (kappa coefficient = 1.000) and good agreement for bone studies (kappa coefficient = 0.709). Secondary, image quantitative was excellent agreement for bone studies, lung studies and vascular studies (kappa coefficient = 0.870 to 1.000), and fair to good agreement for myocardial perfusion studies (kappa coefficient = 0.211 to 1.000). And thirdly, clinical diagnostic results were excellent agreement for bone studies, lung studies and vascular studies (kappa coefficient = 1.000), and moderate agreement for myocardium perfusion studies (kappa coefficient = 0.478). In conclusion, ChulaView is a computer program to use as a tool for facilitating the interpretation, picture archiving and communication in nuclear medicine. It is comparable to a commercial software.