A Mammography Database and Viewer System

Abstract

A Mammography Database and Viewer System have collected and stored mammography images of Thai women, treated at the Radiology Department of Hospital in Rangsit, Pathumtani, Thailand, constructed a database using the digitized mammography images, and developed an image viewing system to display these digital mammograms. The images are stored with the high resolution Matrox Morphis (MOR/2VD/84*) frame grabber board. The digital mammography database is powered by MySQL and PHP. It also has a web-based search engine (with secure access) so that the information can be made accessible to all medical team members. The image viewing software, DICOM Viewer, is coded in Borland C++ Builder and is intended to help medical professionals view and retrieve large data sets in near real time. This have already digitized 200 cases (one case per patient, twenty to forty images per case). The system also have developed a MySQL-based image database, and a PHP-based web-search engine to retrieve cases that have masses (benign or malignant) or calcifications (benign or malignant). This database has been evaluated by medical professionals and the experimental results obtained so far are very promising (high image qualities, fast access time). The system are currently developing an image content-based retrieval function for the database system in order to provide improved search capability for the medical professionals.