Open-source Software, Social Networks May Transform Imaging

Disruptive technologies such as open-source software and collaborative social networks will have a major impact on image communication, PACS, and teleradiology, according to an article published in the June issue of the European Journal of Radiology.

Open-source software tools are emerging as an attractive and cost-effective alternative to commercial offerings, while social networks will slowly change the way physicians, healthcare providers, and even patients interact and communicate, according to a research team led by Dr. Osman Ratib of the University Hospital of Geneva in Switzerland.

Now breaking out into the commercial world and into vertical markets such as medical applications, open-source software is particularly promising in advanced display and analysis applications where the rapid increase in demand can't be matched by traditional commercial software, according to the authors (Eur J Radiol, Vol. 78:2, pp. 259-265).

"To allow radiologists and clinicians to conveniently and efficiently interpret these large exams, traditional image viewers have to be redesigned and adapted to a new paradigm of multidimensional image navigation, visualization, and manipulation," the authors wrote. "By combining multiple new technologies and open-source projects it is today possible to develop a new generation of high-performance 3D and 4D visualization tools that were traditionally only accessible on expensive commercial workstations restricting their use to specialist radiologists."