Ohashi K, Sakamoto N, Watanabe M, Mizushima H, Tanaka H
Department of Bioinformatics, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School,Tokyo, Japan.
Methods Inf Med. 2008;47(2):157-66. doi: 10.3414/me0488.
We developed a new telediagnosis system to securely transmit high-quality endoscopic moving images over the Internet in real time. This system would enable collaboration between physicians seeking advice from endoscopists separated by long distances, to facilitate diagnosis.
We adapted a new type of digital video streaming system (DVTS) to our teleendoscopic diagnosis system. To investigate its feasibility, we conducted a two-step experiment. A basic experiment was first conducted to transmit endoscopic video images between hospitals using a plain DVTS. After investigating the practical usability, we incorporated a secure and reliable communication function into the system, by equipping DVTS with "TCP2", a new security technology that establishes secure communication in the transport layer. The second experiment involved international transmission of teleendoscopic image between Hawaii and Japan using the improved system.
In both the experiments, no serious transmission delay was observed to disturb physicians' communications and, after subjective evaluation by endoscopists, the diagnostic qualities of the images were found to be adequate. Moreover, the second experiment showed that "TCP2-equipped DVTS" successfully executed high-quality secure image transmission over a long distance network.
We conclude that DVTS technology would be promising for teleendoscopic diagnosis. It was also shown that a high quality, secure teleendoscopic diagnosis system can be developed by equipping DVTS with TCP2.
我们开发了一种新的远程诊断系统，用于在互联网上实时安全地传输高质量的内镜动态图像。该系统将使相距甚远的医生之间能够进行协作，以便向内镜专家寻求建议，从而促进诊断。
我们将一种新型数字视频流系统（DVTS）应用于远程内镜诊断系统。为了研究其可行性，我们进行了两步实验。首先进行了一个基础实验，使用普通的DVTS在医院之间传输内镜视频图像。在研究了实际可用性之后，我们通过为DVTS配备“TCP2”（一种在传输层建立安全通信的新安全技术），将安全可靠的通信功能纳入该系统。第二个实验涉及使用改进后的系统在夏威夷和日本之间进行远程内镜图像的国际传输。
在两个实验中，均未观察到严重的传输延迟干扰医生的通信，并且在内镜专家进行主观评估后，发现图像的诊断质量是足够的。此外，第二个实验表明，“配备TCP2的DVTS”成功地在长途网络上执行了高质量的安全图像传输。
我们得出结论，DVTS技术对于远程内镜诊断具有前景。还表明，通过为DVTS配备TCP2，可以开发出高质量、安全的远程内镜诊断系统。
