September 30, 2008 - INFINITT North America recently introduced Mammo Visualgate, a software product that allows mammography films to be digitized with the correct anatomical view image tags (RCC, LCC, RMLO, etc.) so the images can be presented with the same hanging protocol as the digital exams.
“Without this software radiologists would need to ‘drag and drop’ each image in place before interpreting the study,” said Mark Wellens, M.D., a diagnostic radiologist at Springfield Hospital in Springfield, VT. “This is counterproductive in today's workflow-driven radiology department.”
The Mammo Visualgate software also populates the patient demographic and study identification fields directly from the Worklist (MWL), eliminating the need to key in the information manually.
Clinical studies have validated Full-Field Digital Mammography (FFDM) as a valuable tool in the early detection of breast cancer, and many imaging centers and radiology departments have converted to the technology in order to enhance workflow efficiency and improve patient care, said the company.
But the need to compare the new digital studies with prior film studies can be an impediment to realizing productivity gains. The simplest solution is to scan the films with a high-quality film digitizer so that all images can be viewed on the same workstation.
There is a difference, however, between digitizing films in support of the DICOM SC (Secondary Capture) class and digitizing films to meet the DICOM MG (Mammography) portion of the standard. The DICOM MG class addresses the proper labeling of specific views of mammography films so that priors can be integrated with new mammography studies, and presented according to pre-defined hanging protocols.
This is an essential piece of the workflow picture that is required for a digital mammography system to reportedly deliver both patient care benefits and greater radiologist and staff productivity.
For more information: www.infinittna.com
