Technology : Use of iPhone Mobile Devices in Medical Field

With the aid of technology such as using mobile devices for immediate diagnostic process of medical procedures will tremendously save many lives.  Medical imaging plays an important role in the medical field. Radiologists must evaluate and interpret complex analyses of images the soonest possible time and correctly.

Last November 2009 annual meeting of The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), they presented the results of their study of the use of iPhone mobile devices to scan CT scan images with a viewing software installed in the device to diagnose acute appendicitis. 

The study of 25 patients using the mobile devices were correctly diagnosed resulting to  99% accuracy.

According to Dr. Asim F. Choudhri, the study lead author and a physician in the division of neuroradiology at Johns Hopkins University, “ this new technology can expedite diagnosis, and therefore treatment”. The mobile devices can diagnose even in remote areas or wherever the patient is located, and can be transmitted immediately for physician’s evaluation prior to surgery.

The OsiriX Software

he iPhone G3 with OsiriX Mobile Imaging Viewer Sotware. A free open source software  for multimodal and multidimensional visualization of images.

OsiriX software is developed  and maintained by Pixmeo SARL, a company based in Geneva Switzerland. The software were created by former UCLA Radiologists, Antoine Rosset M.D. and Dr. Osman Ratib.

OsiriX produces high resolution images with the capability of advanced imaging  manipulation aside from regular zoom, pan,adjusting contrast, and brightness of the images. It is at the same time a DICOM PACS workstation for imaging and an image processing software for medical research (radiology and nuclear imaging), functional imaging, 3D imaging, confocal microscopy and molecular imaging.

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