Extending PACS Functionality: Towards Facilitating the Conversion of Clinical Necessities into Research-Derived Applications.

The Picture Administration and Communications System (PACS) was designed to replace the old film archiving system in hospitals in order to store and move varying medical image modalities. Using the standard Internet transport protocol, PACS creators designed a robust digital signaling platform to optimize media use, availability, and confidentiality. Nowadays PACS has become ubiquitous in medical facilities but lacks imaging analytical capabilities. A myriad of initiatives have been launched in the hope of achieving this goal, but current solutions face issues with security and ease-of-use that have precluded their widespread adoption. Here, we present a PACS-based image processing tool that safeguards patient confidentiality, is user-friendly and is easy to implement. The final product is platform-independent, has a small degree of intrusiveness and is well suited to clinical and research workflows.