Design and Implementation of a Digital Teleultrasound System for Real-Time Remote Diagnosis

We present the design and implementation of a digital image capture and distribution system that supports remote ultrasound ezaminations and, in particular, real-time diagnosis for these ezaminations. The system was designed in conjunction with radiologists and staff in the Department of Radiology at the University of Virginia hospital. Based on readily available microcomputer components, our teleultmsound system handles the acquisition, digitizing, and reliable transmission of still and moving images generated by an ultrasound machine. The digital images have a resolution of 640A80 with an 8-bit color plane, can be captured at rates up to 30 frames/sec, and are compressed and decompressed in real-time using specialized hardware. While scalable to communications networks of any transmission speed, initial deployment is envisioned for 1.5 Mbit/s T-1 leased lines. To achieve realtime still image distribution and to reduce the bandwidth necessary for motion video, the teleultrasound design employs lossy image compression based on the JPEG standard 141. The effects of JPEG compression on diagnostic quality are being studied in a sepamte signal detection study with the Department of Radiology at the University of Virginia.