Pukka-j has developed a unique Medical Disk Service (MDS) specifically designed for Nuclear Medicine and PET/CT departments to enable import or export of DICOM compliant CD or DVD removable media. To develop this new device, Pukka-j partnered with Rimage Corporation, the world’s largest and most experienced manufacturer of CD and DVD publishing, duplication and printing systems, providing state-of-the-art equipment, representing the very latest advances in CD and DVD publishing technology.

The device itself features an input bin for stacking multiple CD and DVD’s into one compartment of the MDS robot. The robot then takes one disk after the other from the stack, reads the image data ready for the department to view, store and manage. The system is so quick and easy that the stacks of CDs collecting dust on shelves could be a thing of the past in Nuclear Medicine departments.
The MDS, customised by Pukka-j, enables a completely web-based solution that can be accessed via any networked PC. It intelligently manages all imported images via the Pukka-j DICOM Server by automatically sorting the imported images from the CD or DVD into multiple folders based on any DICOM field complete in the image header. This could be modality type, body part, institution or referring site. For instance, all PET CT image CDs acquired from mobile ISTC Service ‘A’ will be stored in one specific folder ready for image archive or distribution.

The system comes complete with an in-built short-term image cache server and can be easily expanded to feature Networked Attached Storage of up to several TB’s of RAID for long-term storage. It is also well suited for departments who wish to keep raw PET/CT and NM data separate from radiology images, where often only screen captures are relevant to the radiology PACS/RIS. In addition, the imported image’s unique identifier can be prefixed by Pukka-j to enable the user group to identify, quickly and easily, all imported images and keep the data separate, but accessible from PACS workstations.
Another feature is Pukka-j’s inbuilt NM and PET CT connectivity which allows imported images to be viewed and manipulated on existing specialist Philips, Siemens and GE workstations.
The MDS image distribution is also well catered for with Pukka-j’s Advanced DICOM Rules for auto-forwarding data across the network. A typical rule could be to send all PET CT images to workstation A, B and C except head images, which can only be sent to workstation D.
For research and education requirements, an automated rule to remove the data and depersonalise the image can be applied to any image data, to remove patient, referrer and institution identification. The de-personalised data can then be auto-routed to a specified location or DICOM device/node via Pukka-j’s advanced Server rules.