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Digital (R)Evolution in Radiology

University of Virginia Health Sciences Center Charlottesville, VA 22908

Edited by Walter Hruby. Vienna: Springer-Verlag, 343 pp., 2001. $ 129

If you would like to review books for AJR, please send a cover letter stating your interest with a current curriculum vitae to Assistant Editor for Book Reviews, AJR, 101 S. Stratford Rd., Ste. 303, Winston-Salem, NC 27104.

University professor Walter Hruby, chairman of the radiology department at Danube Hospital, Vienna, Austria, is the editor of Digital (R)Evolution in Radiology. Sixty-seven authors—from Germany, Austria, Ireland, and the United States—contributed to this book, in which the scope is the digital imaging revolution in radiology, an overview of a decade's experience.

The book is organized into five sections (I have paraphrased some of the chapter titles within them). "Basics of Digital Radiology" discusses the basics of computer technology and digital imaging, the Internet in medicine, and PACS 2000+ (picture archiving and communication systems from networks to workflow and beyond). "Planning Digital Radiology: Practical Approaches" looks at requests for proposals for PACS, digital radiology information systems in the hospital, interfacing and integration of radiology information systems and PACS, horizontal PACS deployment in an integrated system, making the transition to filmless images, and large PACS projects. The section includes a review of a decade of digital revolution at the Danube Hospital. "Applications Using New Digital Technologies" concentrates on work flow and the practical applications of digital radiology. "Current Development and Economics Issues" has chapters on flat-panel detectors, Scanhead technology (developed by Agfa, Ridgefield Park, NJ), and the economics of digital radiology (investing in PACS using real option theory). The final section, an epilogue, is "Virtual Reality: Symbiosis of Science and Art."

Each of the 34 chapters is well written and coupled with excellent illustrations. Each chapter provides selected references and available Web sites. Most of the chapters deal with implementation and evaluation of PACS. The message is that PACS is in a state of rapid evolution with tight integration to radiology information systems and health information systems.

A great deal of the material describes the digital evolution at the Danube Hospital. This is a weakness of the book in that it relegates other published work to references; it is also a strength in that access to this material has been difficult to obtain and would have soon been lost. A constant theme throughout the chapters is the need for the implementation (and analysis) of work flow methods.

Several new technologies and their use are presented, such as personal medical digital assistants (PMDA) mobile computing and three-dimensional modeling. Flat-panel detectors, Scanhead technology, and the economic aspects of digital radiology are discussed.

In summary, this book is well written and well illustrated. It provides material regarding the German development of digital radiology that is not readily available in English. The text is clear and presented without extensive mathematics. A clear outline of what is to be presented in each section would have strengthened the book.

Digital (R)Evolution In Radiology is a good presentation, but not one of depth. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in digital radiology and PACS as developed in Germany and Austria. A companion book would be Radiology in Medical Diagnostics: Evolution of X-Ray Applications 1895-1995, edited by Gerd Rosenbusch, Matthijs Oudkerk, and Ernst Ammann, published in English by Blackwell Science (1995). That book presents the analog portion of radiology in medical diagnostics and Digital (R)Evolution in Radiology presents the digital imaging applications.

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Dwyer, S. J. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Dwyer, S. J., III Social Bookmarking                      What's this?