A Grid-Based Image Archival and Analysis System

• Published in: Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 286 - 295
• Main Authors: Hastings, Shannon, Oster, Scott, Langella, Stephen, Kurc, Tahsin M., Pan, Tony, Catalyurek, Umit V., Saltz, Joel H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Inc 01.05.2005; Oxford University Press; American Medical Informatics Association
• Subjects: Computer Communication Networks; Databases as Topic; Diagnostic Imaging; Information Storage and Retrieval - methods; Radiology Information Systems; Software; The Practice of Informatics; User-Computer Interface
• ISSN: 1067-5027; 1527-974X
• DOI: 10.1197/jamia.M1698

Here the authors present a Grid-aware middleware system, called GridPACS, that enables management and analysis of images in a massive scale, leveraging distributed software components coupled with interconnected computation and storage platforms. The need for this infrastructure is driven by the increasing biomedical role played by complex datasets obtained through a variety of imaging modalities. The GridPACS architecture is designed to support a wide range of biomedical applications encountered in basic and clinical research, which make use of large collections of images. Imaging data yield a wealth of metabolic and anatomic information from macroscopic (e.g., radiology) to microscopic (e.g., digitized slides) scale. Whereas this information can significantly improve understanding of disease pathophysiology as well as the noninvasive diagnosis of disease in patients, the need to process, analyze, and store large amounts of image data presents a great challenge.