Pocket-size solid-state iPOD and flash drives for gigabyte storage, display and transfer of digital medical images: Review and work initiated.

A locally assembled image viewer system with pocket-size iPOD (80 GB) and flash (2 GB) drives for gigabyte storage, display and transfer of digital medical images, oriented towards training purposes, is described. Both the iPOD and flash drive enable storage of thousands of images from diverse medical-imaging equipments. The iPOD, in addition, can display with sufficient resolution any of these images and serves as a transportable preview device. Through the use of a computer, these devices can access/ store/ display the images/ photos from a CD, digital camera or the internet. A TV image viewing unit is also provided. The operational features and the advantages of these devices are discussed in detail. The quality assurance (QA) of the displays has been successfully carried out with standard test patterns. The image quality has been tested with dynamic and static medical images. The system will be highly useful for storage and remote display of multitude of images from several modalities in the hospital, as well as other images, from the point of view of education and training. It has good potential for use in clinical diagnosis as well. Other recent advancements using iPHONE and improved but expensive computers, integrated with picture archiving and communication system (PACS) as well as radiology and hospital information system (RHIS) for versatile applications in modern radiology, are also highlighted.This system, assembled with indigenous equipments, is much less expensive and specially suited for teaching radiologists, physicists and technologists, particularly in developing countries.