No abstract

This paper reviews state-of-the-art research solutions across the spectrum of medical imaging informatics, discusses clinical translation, and provides future directions for advancing clinical practice. More specifically, it summarizes advances in medical imaging acquisition technologies for different modalities, highlighting the necessity for efficient medical data management strategies in

We propose a unifying framework for efficient encoding, transmission, and quality assessment of atherosclerotic plaque ultrasound video. The approach is based on a spatially varying encoding scheme, where video-slice quantization parameters are varied as a function of diagnostic significance. Video slices are automatically set based on a segmentation algorithm. They are then encoded using a modified version of H.264/AVC flexible macroblock ordering (FMO) technique that allows variable quality slice encoding and redundant slices (RSs) for resilience over error-prone transmission channels. We evaluate our scheme on a representative collection of ten ultrasound videos of the carotid artery for packet loss rates up to 30%. Extensive simulations incorporating three FMO encoding methods, different quantization parameters, and different packet loss scenarios are investigated. Quality assessment is based on a new clinical rating system that provides independent evaluations of the different parts of the video (subjective). We also use objective video-quality assessment metrics and estimate their correlation to the clinical quality assessment of plaque type. We find that some objective quality assessment measures computed over the plaque video slices gave very good correlations to mean opinion scores (MOSs). Here, MOSs were computed using two medical experts. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves enhanced performance in noisy environments, while at the same time achieving significant bandwidth demands reductions, providing transmission over 3G (and beyond) wireless networks.

The intima-media thickness (IMT) of the common carotid artery (CCA) is widely used as an early indicator of cardiovascular disease (CVD). It was proposed but not thoroughly investigated that the composition and texture of the media layer (ML) can be used as an indicator for the risk of stroke. In this study, we investigate the application of texture analysis of the ML of the CCA and how texture is affected by age and gender. The study was performed on 100 longitudinal-section ultrasound images acquired from asymptomatic subjects at risk of atherosclerosis. The images were separated into three different age groups, namely below 50, 50-60, and above 60 years old. Furthermore, the images were separated according to gender. A total of 61 different texture features were extracted from the intima layer (IL), the ML, and the intima-media complex (IMC). The ML and the IMC were segmented manually by a neurovascular expert and also automatically by a snakes segmentation system. We have found that male patients tended to have larger media layer thickness (MLT) values as compared to the MLT of female patients of the same age. We have found significant differences among texture features extracted from the IL, ML and IMC from different age groups. Furthermore, for some texture features, we found that they follow trends that correlate with a patient's age. For example, the gray-scale median GSM of the ML falls linearly with increasing MLT and with increasing age. Our findings suggest that ultrasound image texture analysis of the media layer has potential as an assessment biomarker for the risk of stroke.