PDA-based system with teleradiology and image analysis capabilities

The aim of the present study was to design and implement a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)-based teleradiology system incorporating image processing and analysis facilities for use in emergency situations within a hospital environment. The system comprised a DICOM-server, connected to an MRI unit, 3 wireless access points, and 3 PDAs (HP iPaq rx3715). PDA application software was developed in MS Embedded Visual C++ 4.0. Each PDA can receive, load, process and analyze hi-quality static MR images. Image processing includes gray-scale manipulation and spatial filtering techniques while image analysis incorporates a probabilistic neural network (PNN) classifier, which was optimally designed employing a suitable combination of textural features and was evaluated using the leave-one-out method. The PNN is capable of discriminating between three major types of human brain tumors with accuracy of 86.66%. The developed application may be useful as a mobile medical teleconsultation tool.