Compresión de imágenes médicas

Abstract

Modern medicine is an increasingly complex activity, based on the evidence; it consists of information from multiple sources: medical record text, sound recordings, images and videos generated by a large number of devices. Medical imaging is one of the most important sources of information since they offer comprehensive support of medical procedures for diagnosis and follow-up. However, the amount of information generated by image capturing gadgets quickly exceeds storage availability in radiology services, generating additional costs in devices with greater storage capacity. Besides, the current trend of developing applications in cloud computing has limitations, even though virtual storage is available from anywhere, connections are made through internet. In these scenarios the optimal use of information necessarily requires powerful compression algorithms adapted to medical activity needs. In this paper we present a review of compression techniques used for image storage, and a critical analysis of them from the point of view of their use in clinical settings.