Cardiology

Higher Rates of Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD)

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), in 2002 CVD was the primary cause of death for approximately 1 million people.

CVD encompasses all known diseases that affect the heart and related vessels. Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of CVD-related deaths and accounts for more than 50 percent of all CVD deaths. The aging population, especially the large number of baby-boomer generation reaching age 60, combined with significant increase in obesity and heart-related risk factors among adults over the age of 45 is contributing the growing demand for cardiovascular diagnostics and interventions.

Imaging in Cardiology

Cardiovascular health is mainly diagnosed and evaluated using stress tests, echocardiography and minimally invasive catheterization. These procedures are typically performed by catheterization (cath) and echocardiology (echo) lab and result in the generation of digital images. Today, a significant majority of cath labs operate digital x-ray systems, while echo labs are rapidly adopting digital imaging technologies.

Cardiology imaging is also moving beyond catheterization and echocardiography. CT imaging is rapidly gaining acceptance as an alternative to invasive catheterization. Multi-slice CTs with greater resolutions, are providing cardiologists with non-invasive data capture capability.

Growing Need for Digital Archiving

The rapid digitization of cardiology imaging and in particular the adoption of CT technologies will require scalable and higher capacity digital image archiving solutions. A typical catheterization procedure takes up approximately 400 to 500 megabytes (MB) of space. A typical CT angiography consists of at least thousands of images and requires in excess of 350 MB of space.

Most recently, advanced computational techniques and algorithms are leading to three-dimensional (3D) or "volumetric" CT images. These volumetric images require even more space for digital storage.

ImageGrid - Archiving for Cardiology Imaging

The digitization of cardiology images is increasing the need for the electronic storage of images in a networked digital archive so that physicians can have immediate access to images at any time and from anywhere. The ImageGrid product line provides reliable, cost-effective and scalable archiving solutions capable of receiving images from any cardiology DICOM modality.

As a DICOM Storage Server appliance, ImageGrid can be used as a stand-alone archiving solution in a pre-PACS cardiology practice or department. Alternatively, for departments or practices with a Cardiology PACS, ImageGrid is an affordable add-on archive for the ever increasing number of studies and large image sets.