Efficacy of teleradiology and telepathology in dentistry

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The efficacy of the teleconference between radiology and pathology departments in dental field was evaluated in examining the time required to send images, the diagnostic quality of the images, and the handling of the systems. The management of the NTT-based videophone-conference system was also examined. The results were as follows : 1) The quality of the transmitted CT, MRI and plain radiologic images in JPEG 20 : 1 lossy compression would be accepted in routine diagnostic tasks. The 14 pathologic images examined were also accepted in quality in lossless compression. 2) The radiologic image data ranging from 3,000 to 10,000MB were, on average, required 2 min in 20 : 1 lossy and 30 min in lossless compression. More time was required of the pathologic image data. As a result, the real-time teleconference would not be realistic in such circumstances. On the other hand, 3) the videophone-teleconference system was evaluated to be promising because the images could be sent and observed immediately each other. It helped to discuss the case on both sides. 4) the quality of the pathologic images was, however, far inferior to the original, especially in low-and middle-magnification. All of the radiologic images were accepted even in this system. 5) Since the lower quality of the transmitted images was somewhat compensated with the discussion of both sides, the proposed videophone-teleconference system would be accepted in the real situation. 6) Although the usage of the ISDN64 is advantageous because it is available through all over Japan, the infrastructure of the transmission technology would be required in to develope more-efficient teleconference system using radiologic and pathologic diagnostic images.