JP2001005825A - Medical image server device and image retrieving method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To accelerate retrieving processing concerning an image server device for retrieving an image filing means or image archive device and outputting an image corresponding to a retrieval request from a terminal while having the image filing means, which is connected to the image archive device, for storing plural medical images by itself as well. SOLUTION: Concerning the medical image server device, an image server device 14 for retrieving an image filing means 14a or image archive devices 17 and 18 and outputting the image corresponding to the retrieval request from terminals 15 and 16 while having the image filing means 14a connected to the image archive devices 17 and 18 for storing plural medical images acquires image attached information stored in the image archive devices 17 and 18 on the basis of examination order information from a radiology information system(RIS) 11 and constructs the data base of the acquired information in the image filing means 14a. When the retrieval requests are received from the terminals 15 and 16, only the data base is retrieved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a medical image server device for retrieving images from an image archive device for storing and storing medical images and outputting the images to a terminal. With a database of
The present invention relates to a medical image server device capable of high-speed search.

[0002] The present invention also relates to an image search method in such a medical image server device.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, in a medical institution such as a hospital, images recorded by various image recording modalities such as CT, MRI, and CR are stored on a medium such as a large-capacity optical disk together with supplementary information for searching. Remembering is done. A device that accumulates and stores this type of image is referred to as an “image archive device” in this specification.
This medical image is obtained from each image recording modality, for example, through an image server device connected via a network.
Alternatively, when the image server device receives an output request from another terminal, it is directly input to and stored in the image archive device, and is fetched from the image archive device and output to the terminal.

The above-mentioned image archiving apparatus is used to accumulate and store medical images obtained over a relatively long period (several years or more) in accordance with the regulations regarding the preservation of medical images.

[0005] On the other hand, in many cases, the medical image server device itself is configured to store and store a medical image together with its accompanying information in a storage means in order to speed up the search results and image output. However, those images are, of course, not all the images stored and stored in the image archive device,
Only images acquired over a relatively short period of time, such as the past week or January.

In the medical image server apparatus configured as described above, when a search request is received from a terminal, first, an image stored in its own storage means is searched to obtain a relatively recently obtained image. In the case of medical images, search results and images can be output at high speed without searching for each image archive device.

If a medical image matching the search condition is not stored and stored in the medical image server device itself, the medical image server device searches each image archive device,
Each of those databases is searched, and the search results and images are output.

[0008]

However, when the search is performed from the medical image server apparatus to the external image archive apparatus as described above, the search takes a lot of time, particularly when the number of image archive apparatuses is large. I will.

Therefore, the present invention provides a medical image server device capable of retrieving a medical image at a higher speed than before, and
It is intended to provide an image search method.

[0010]

A medical image server apparatus according to the present invention is connected to an image archiving apparatus for storing a plurality of medical images acquired over a relatively long period of time, and also compares itself. A medical unit that stores a plurality of medical images acquired over a short period of time and searches the storage unit or the image archive device to output images in response to a search request from a terminal In the image server device, an information acquisition unit for acquiring image accompanying information stored in the image archive device for a patient whose medical image has been captured, and a unit for storing the information acquired by the information acquisition unit and forming a database. When a search request is received from a terminal, only the database is searched and stored in the storage means and / or the image archive device. That it is characterized in that a means for outputting a search result related to image retrieval requesting terminal.

[0011] The information acquisition means may be configured, for example, to receive examination order information relating to medical image capturing of a patient and acquire image accompanying information, or
The image accompanying information may be acquired from the information attached to the image captured and input to the medical image server device.

On the other hand, an image search method according to the present invention is an image search method using the medical image server device according to the present invention as described above, and searches only the database when a search request is received from a terminal. A search result relating to an image stored and stored in the storage unit and / or the image archive device is output to a search requesting terminal.

[0013]

The medical image server apparatus of the present invention obtains image accompanying information stored in the image archive apparatus, stores the information and forms a database therein, and receives a search request from the terminal. Since it is configured to search only this database, retrieval and output of search results excluding acquisition and transfer of image data from the image archive device can be performed without exchanging data with each image archive device. Can be done. Therefore, according to the medical image server device of the present invention, medical images can be searched at higher speed than before.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a medical network system including a medical image server device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the system shown in FIG.
Is a local area network (LAN) wired within the hospital premises, such as Ethernet, FDDI, or the like. This LAN may be connected to the Internet via a dedicated line or a public line such as ISDN.

The network 10 includes a radiology information system (RIS) 11, image recording modalities 12 and 13, an image search server 14 as a medical image server device, a diagnostic workstation 15 as one of terminals, and a reference terminal. 16, image archiving devices 17 and 18, and laser printer 19
Etc. are connected.

The image recording modalities 12 and 13 are devices or systems for recording patient images as digital data, such as CT, MRI, CR, RI, and US. This may be, for example, a method in which an analog image signal obtained by shooting is digitally converted and recorded as it is, or an image once recorded on a film or the like is read at the time of shooting to obtain digital data. Is also good.

The radiology information system 11 is connected to a terminal (not shown) installed in a radiology department, a department that requests the radiology department to record an image, or a department that requests a surgery. Inspection order information (ordering for radiology, etc.) for the patient and image recording modalities 12 and 13
Is a system for transmitting information and processing information in the radiology department based on the imaging information and the like in the above.

The image search server 14 is composed of a computer system, and stores image data recorded by the image recording modalities 12 and 13 together with image-related information for search (information such as patient name, diagnosis department, date of imaging, etc.). Archive device 17
Alternatively, the data is accumulated and stored in 18 and a database is constructed for each archive device. Archive device in this way
The image data of a plurality of medical images acquired over a relatively long period of several years or more is stored in the memory 17 or 18.

The image search server 14 is an archive device.
A hard disk 14a for storing image data of a plurality of medical images acquired over a relatively short period of time among image data to be stored and stored in 17 or 18 together with image accompanying information for search. . Then, based on a search request from the diagnostic workstation 15 or the reference terminal 16, the image search server 14 searches the database or the hard disk 14 a in its own device for a desired image, and obtains the search result and the search result. The image data is transferred to the diagnostic workstation 15 and the reference terminal 16.

The diagnostic workstation 15 performs image processing so that a radiologist or the like refers to the image data and changes image processing parameters as necessary to obtain an image suitable for diagnosis. This is a terminal used for making a diagnosis while referring to the processed image.

The reference terminal 16 is a terminal provided only for referring to image data and having no image processing function. The laser printer 19 outputs the processed image data as a visible image. Laser printer 19
The image is output to the image search server 14 by issuing an instruction from the diagnostic workstation 15 to the image search server 14.

This medical network system is, for example, an ACR-NEMA committee (ACR: American).
College of Radiology, NEMA: National Electric
al Manufacturers Association)
(Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine)
It is built on standards.

The DICOM standard is a standard for realizing an object-oriented medical network system, and includes the contents and data structures of various diagnostic information such as CT image information, examination information, patient information, and the like. For exchanging as a message (image storage,
Procedures for requesting services such as retrieval, printing, and inquiry) are defined. The DICOM standard defines in detail the data format of essential information in a medical system such as patient information and examination information, and further defines an interface for a processing request when inquiring for various information.

Next, the construction of a database on the hard disk 14a and the image search processing by the image search server 14 will be described with reference to FIG. 2 showing an outline of the processing. The image search server 14 includes information acquisition means for acquiring image accompanying information stored in the archive devices 17 and 18 and means for forming a database, and the processing by the means is performed based on a predetermined computer program.

That is, in this example, the image retrieval server 14
Obtains patient information by receiving examination order information from the radiology information system (RIS) 11,
Accompanying information of images stored in the archive devices 17 and 18 for the patient is acquired, and the acquired information is accumulated on the hard disk 14a to form a database.

The image data corresponding to such supplementary information is stored in the archive devices 17 and 18 as described above, and of those image data, the image data of the medical image acquired in a relatively short period of time. The data is also stored on the hard disk 14a. The image data stored in the hard disk 14a is automatically deleted from the hard disk 14a sequentially after a predetermined period from the time when the image data is stored, but the additional information is not subjected to such deletion.

When the image search server 14 receives a search request from the diagnostic workstation 15 or the reference terminal 16, it searches only the database on the hard disk 14a and stores it in the archive devices 17 and 18. The search result relating to the image is output to the diagnosis workstation 15 or the reference terminal 16 that is the search request source.

In this case, if the image data that matches the search condition is obtained relatively recently and is also stored in the hard disk 14a, the image data along with the search result is also transmitted to the diagnostic workstation. It can be output to 15 or a reference terminal 16. On the other hand, if the image data that matches the search condition is not stored in the hard disk 14a, only the search result is output to the diagnostic workstation 15 or the reference terminal 16 in that case. For such image data, when an acquisition request is input from the diagnostic workstation 15 or the reference terminal 16 to the image search server 14, the image search server 14 acquires the image data from the archive devices 17, 18, and Output to the diagnostic workstation 15 or the reference terminal 16.

As described above, the image search is performed only on the hard disk 14a of the image search server 14,
If the search is not performed to the archive devices 17 and 18 one by one, the search process can be reliably speeded up.

In the above example, the image retrieval server 14
The image accompanying information is acquired based on the examination order information from the radiology information system (RIS) 11.
Alternatively, the information may be obtained from information actually attached to the image data input from 13 to the image search server 14.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a medical network system including a medical image server device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a database formation and an image search performed by the medical image server device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Network 11 Radiology Information System 12, 13 Image Recording Modality 14 Image Search Server 14a Image Search Server Hard Disk 15 Diagnostic Workstation 16 Reference Terminal 17, 18 Image Archive 19 Laser Printer

Claims (4)

[Claims] An image archiving apparatus for storing and storing a plurality of medical images acquired over a relatively long period of time and a plurality of medical images acquired over a relatively short period of time. A medical image server device that retrieves the storage device or the image archive device and outputs an image in response to a search request from a terminal. An information acquisition unit for acquiring image accompanying information accumulated in the image archive device; a unit for accumulating the information acquired by the information acquisition unit to form a database; A search is performed, and a search result relating to the image stored and stored in the storage unit and / or the image archive device is output to a search request source terminal. Medical image server apparatus characterized by comprising a means for. 2. The medical image server device according to claim 1, wherein the information obtaining means receives the inspection order information related to the medical image capturing of the patient and obtains the image accompanying information. 3. The image acquisition device according to claim 1, wherein the information acquisition unit acquires the image accompanying information from information attached to an image captured and input to the medical image server device. The medical image server device according to claim 1. 4. An image search method using the medical image server device according to claim 1, wherein when a search request is received from a terminal, only the database is searched, and the storage means and And / or outputting a search result relating to an image stored and stored in the image archive device to a search requesting terminal.