Medical Image Compression using Wavelet Transform on Mobile Devices with ROI coding support

Medical applications have already been integrated into mobile devices (e.g. Tablet PC´s and PDA´s) and are being used by medical personnel in treatment centers, for retrieving and examining patient data and medical images. Network transmission and image data processing are key issues in such platforms, due to the significant image file sizes. Wavelet transform has been considered to be a highly efficient technique of image compression resulting in both lossless and lossy compressed images of great accuracy, enabling its use on medical images. This paper discusses a Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) application designed for viewing DICOM compliant medical images using wavelet compression with ROI coding support, on mobile devices. In addition, it presents initial results from its pilot application and demonstrates its performance over heterogeneous radio network segments, like IEEE 802.11b, GPRS and DVB-H