A DICOM based PACS for nuclear medicine

Abstract

SummaryThe installation of a Radiology Information System (RIS) connected to a Hospital Information System (HIS) and a Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) seems mandatory for a nuclear medicine department in order to guarantee a high patient throughput. With these systems a fast transmission of reports, images to the in- and out-patients’ wards and private practitioners is realized. Therefore, since April 2000, at the department of nuclear medicine of the university of Würzburg a completely DICOM based PACS has been implemented in addition to the RIS.With this system a DICOM based workflow is realized throughout the department of nuclear medicine for reporting and archiving.The PACS is connected to six gamma-cameras, a PET scanner, a bone densitometry system and an ultrasound device. The volume of image data archived per month is 4 GByte. Patient demographics are provided to the modalities via DICOM-Worklist. With these PACS components a department specific archive purely based on DICOM can be realized. During the installation process problems occurred mainly because of the complex DICOM standard for nuclear medicine. Related to that is the problem that most of the software implementations still contain bugs or are not adapted to the needs of a nuclear medicine department (particularly for PET).A communication software for the distribution of nuclear medicine reports and images based on techniques used for the worldwide web is currently tested.