Invited Speech- PACS & US: A Difficult Integration

PACS is in daily use in many hospitals and shows a reasonably good degreeof functionality when dealing with radiological images.However, there are still some unresolved problems when PACS is asked tomanage ultrasonographic images. These images are markedly different withrespect to the other diagnostic images. They are dynamic, and multiframehas to be supported. They may include colour areas, and special LUT andwindow/level have to be foreseen. They display on the same screendifferent dimensions of data (e.g. a space - measured in cm - and avelocity - measured in cm/sec).Most PACS workstations are unable to cope with the specific requirementsfor optimally displaying ultrasonographic images.In this talk the specific issues of ultrasonography that are relevant forPACS will be discussed.