Abstract
Background With the outbreak of COVID-19, large-scale telemedicine applications can play an important role in the epidemic areas or less developed areas. However, the transmission of hundreds of megabytes of Sectional Medical Images (SMIs) from hospital's Intranet to the Internet has the problems of efficiency, cost, and security. This article proposes a novel lightweight sharing scheme for permitting Internet users to quickly and safely access the SMIs from a hospital using an Internet computer anywhere but without relying on a virtual private network or another complex deployment. Methods A four-level endpoint network penetration scheme based on the existing hospital network facilities and information security rules was proposed to realize the secure and lightweight sharing of SMIs over the Internet. A “Master-Slave” interaction to the interactive characteristics of multiplanar reconstruction and maximum/minimum/average intensity projection was designed to enhance the user experience. Finally, a prototype system was established. Results When accessing SMIs with a data size ranging from 251.6 to 307.04 MB with 200 kBps client bandwidth (extreme test), the network response time to each interactive request remained at approximately 1 s, the original SMIs were kept in the hospital, and the deployment did not require a complex process; the imaging quality and interactive experience were recognized by radiologists. Conclusions This solution could serve Internet medicine at a low cost and may promote the diversified development of mobile medical technology. Under the current COVID-19 epidemic situation, we expect that it could play a low-cost and high-efficiency role in remote emergency support.
Highlights
Sectional Medical Images (SMIs), including CTand MRI, are the main objects of medical image diagnosis at present [1, 2].ey can be used to obtain any viewing angle via multiplanar reconstruction (MPR) and maximum/minimum/average intensity projection (MIP/MinIP/AVG or MIPs for short) [3]. ey are of great significance in medical diagnosis and treatment [4]
Since every interaction of MPR and MIPs is based on the reconstruction of the raw data, this means that hundreds of megabytes of SMIs data have to be transferred to the client, resulting in a higher requirement for network transmission and a higher risk of a data leakage; the scope of their use is too limited to apply to the Internet [5]
How can the hundreds of gigabytes of data be transmitted quickly over the Internet? Especially during the epidemic, large-scale online work and online learning have made network facilities vulnerable [7]. (2) Security risk of data leakage: in terms of hospital information security rules, the PACS, the RIS, and other hospital Intranet systems [8] are strictly isolated from the Internet; how can we ensure that the original image data could be used over the Internet but kept in the hospital?
Summary
Sectional Medical Images (SMIs), including CTand MRI, are the main objects of medical image diagnosis at present [1, 2].ey can be used to obtain any viewing angle via multiplanar reconstruction (MPR) and maximum/minimum/average intensity projection (MIP/MinIP/AVG or MIPs for short) [3]. ey are of great significance in medical diagnosis and treatment [4]. Since every interaction of MPR and MIPs is based on the reconstruction of the raw data, this means that hundreds of megabytes of SMIs data have to be transferred to the client, resulting in a higher requirement for network transmission and a higher risk of a data leakage; the scope of their use is too limited to apply to the Internet [5]. The network transmission bottleneck and the risk of data leakage were both reduced, the last mile problem from Intranet PACS to the Internet and the interactive experience for MPR or MIPs reconstruction have not been considered. Under the current COVID-19 epidemic situation, we expect that it could play a low-cost and high-efficiency role in remote emergency support
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