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PUKKA-J MEETS THE CHALLENGE OF PET/CT IMAGES WITH A ROBUST PET/CT IMAGE DISTRIBUTION SERVICE
Pukka-j’s new Image Distribution Modality Service has been developed to overcome one of the current limitations with radiology-driven PACS, the chief drawback being that it does not easily display fused PET/CT images. Traditionally PET/CT interpretation has required the radiologist to use dedicated separate, specialised workstation software, as most PACS workstations are not designed for displaying nuclear medicine studies and PET/CT studies.
The primary challenge for Pukka-j was to design a solution to accommodate the standard methods used by radiologists to view PET/CT images, overcoming the problems created by the integration to PACS, to provide the radiologist with easy access to PET/CT images. Pukka-j rose to this challenge with its Image Distribution Modality Service. A robust, web-based viewing interface, incorporating comprehensive reporting tools such as Image Fusion, triangulation, SUV (Standard Uptake Value) calculations, MIP (Maximum Intensity Projection) synchronised scrolling of the PET/CT and configurable colour scales, it enables the radiologist to interpret PET/CT images from any location.
The new service also fits well with the national requirements for Multi-Disciplinary Meetings (MDM). The entire PET/CT examination can be received from referring sites, be separately housed, distributed and viewed in MDM facilities, and in addition, the modality server presents the MDM users with a worklist ‘quick-view’ on all relevant MDM data for a specific period (e.g. this week’s cases). In instances where the MDM images need to be incorporated into a hospital’s existing PACS, the Pukka-j Modality Server provides the necessary admin tools for Patient Merge via HL7 messaging, including DICOM Modality Worklist, DICOM Editing, DICOM to Secondary Capture (SC), DICOM Key Objects (KO) and DICOM Structured Reports (SR). Together with proven PACS connectivity, a seamless method for data transfer is facilitated. Pukka-j’s services can be used as a stand-alone or can be integrated easily into a PACS environment.
Another challenge for PET/CT is the size of the datasets generated. The large file sizes can be slow to transfer across poor network bandwidths, making image sharing an issue. Two Dutch hospitals recently commissioned Pukka-j to develop an advanced workflow rule to be applied for all referral requests, which enables the CT datasets to be automatically reduced to a quarter of the original size, which results in an increased imaging sharing performance.
Kevin Wilson, Technical Director, Pukka-j comments:
Since its inception, Pukka-j has maintained strict adherence to industry standards such as DICOM, HL7 and IHE in order to improve our workflow applications. Strict adherence to standards and enterprise-wide performance characteristics allows our customers to effectively and efficiently deal with these challenges. Our new PET/CT advancements are a natural progression, borne out of many years’ experience of delivering services to Nuclear Medicine users and resolving image management issues, problems and difficulties. The PET/CT modality server fully complements our latest range of Imaging Information Services portfolio
Pukka-j is a customer-focused company providing development and deployment of IT products and services to the healthcare sector. The company specialises in configuring its systems to the way that the NHS and independent providers need them to work; services can also be web-integrated where needed.
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