Download as a PDFA LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL: PUKKA-J PROVIDES SOLUTION FOR SENDING RADIOTHERAPY IMAGES TO PACS
Pukka-j is able to provide a solution for the notoriously difficult area of sending radiotherapy images to a PACS system. Now up and running at several UK sites, this unique programme fills a gap left by other vendors’ systems that are unable to provide this function.
The NHS Connecting for Health (CFH) programme aim is to move all of the NHS Trusts in England onto PACS in order to optimise the usage and increase the benefits of central archiving, record sharing and links to NHS Care Records Service (NCRS).
Integrating the radiotherapy process into radiology designed PACS is a complex problem and may not be fully implemented until standard interfaces are available.
The CFH PACS model is based on the traditional model integrated with a Radiology Information System (RIS). The RIS creates and schedules the patient order for an image study. The RIS allocates a unique Accession number to the order, sends a message to the PACS and the imaging modality to maintain accuracy in patient demographic details.
The RIS model becomes more difficult to use as an attempt is made to incorporate radiotherapy information into a radiology PACS model. Accession number is not a key field in the DICOM standard and has no meaning in the radiotherapy context but has evolved as a key field with PACS applications.
PACS/RIS has limited or no support for handling the complex mix of DICOM RT images and their associated objects. Therefore, a requirement for archiving Radiotherapy images has sprung out of the CFH model.
Pukka-j Radiotherapy DICOM RT Archives have been rolled out to Oncology departments including Cookridge Hospital, Clatterbridge Centre of Oncology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, Velindre Hospital and Rosemere Cancer Centre, Preston will take delivery at the end of February.
The Pukka-j Radiotherapy Archive collates and distributes all DICOM data related to radiotherapy patients who are currently undergoing treatment planning and treatment delivery processes. The data is acquired and stored in a combination of DICOM studies and DICOM series that preserves any logical relationship between them.
The Pukka-j system fully supports and maintains the RT cross references required for treatment planning for the following DICOM RT classes objects; Image – CT, DR, RT Structure Set, RT Plan, RT Dose, RT Image.
Accession number is not commonly used in radiotherapy departments. If accession number is essential to other processes then Pukka-j can populate the data with a unique accession number.
Kevin Wilson, Technical Director of Pukka-j comments
We have thought long and hard of the most efficient method for integrating Radiotherapy DICOM RT with the CFH PACS/RIS. Pukka-j can deliver the UK Radiotherapy community with the necessary tools to collect and assemble a mix of DICOM RT objects ready to send to PACS. Using HL7 messaging, the Pukka-j system would communicate direct with the RIS to request a new order. The RIS allocates a unique Accession number to the order and sends a message to the PACS, thus allowing DICOM RT images to be archived centrally.
Manual intervention is required to collate the necessary data as part of the ‘patient discharge treatment’ process. Within radiotherapy treatment devices and systems, a patient’s demographics are consistent throughout all processes. A patient’s treatment will contain CT images, RT plan, RT structure sets, RT image, and RT dose. The Pukka-j system supports ‘drag & drop’, ‘copy & paste’ and ‘send to’ commands for transporting data from a departmental working planning store and into an area ready for migrating to a central radiotherapy data store.
All of the Pukka-j move commands could automatically generate a unique Pukka-j Study UID number to all associated data. The new combined Study UID data is logically labelling the treatment data set, which would previously resulted in a mix of Study UID numbers with no study cross references made to objects associated to the patient’s treatment. The modified Study UID collation of treatment data is now ready to send to a central radiotherapy data store for long term archiving and the local radiotherapy store data could then be deleted, creating storage capacity for future patients.
radiotherapy images to PACS schematic
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