We'll continue to speed ahead to the next edition of our series of blog posts, “Can you? Visage can.” In the first two chapters of Speed, we discussed the topics of Image Display and 3D/Advanced Visualization. Many may think that speed of image display and having access to 3D views are most important; however, the size of imaging studies continues to grow and grow. A few years ago, cross sectional imaging made its way to mammography and far too many imaging organizations continue to struggle with their infrastructure, workflow, and interpretation.
How important is speed? Not too long ago we were at a demo at a large outpatient imaging chain, when the next radiologist on the schedule sat down for their demo. She immediately said, "Is it ok if I drive?" She clicked on the study and immediately the DBT painted the viewports of the multi-headed display. She froze with delight, literally. Without saying a word to anyone, she 'dropped' the mouse and shuffled out of the room in absolute amazement. When she came back a few moments later, all of us were puzzled by her reaction. She paused and said, "You have to excuse me, as I've been struggling with DBT for a long, long time. What I just saw impressed me so much I just had to leave and compose myself. Now, let me do that again!"
With that experience as the context for what is possible, in this post, we'll continue the conversation with Chapter 3: DBT.
With Visage 7, digital breast tomosynthesis is just another modality, no separate module or workstation required.
Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (DBT or “tomo”)
Even today, many legacy PACS do not support DBT at all. And those legacy PACS that do support tomo do so with significant limitations. How so? Speed of image display, restricted access to priors, the need for a dedicated DBT archive, the need for dedicated DBT workstations, the need for significant network augmentation, the need for workflow modification (e.g., perform procedures in the AM, move priors all other hours in advance of the next day) are all limitations we frequently hear about regarding legacy PACS support of tomo.
For Visage 7, DBT is simply another modality, requiring no workarounds or dedicated workflows whatsoever. Visage 7 supports the display of DBT along with DBT priors and multimodality presentation of all breast imaging studies (MG, DBT, Breast MR, Breast US, AWBUS), or any modality for that matter, from both Windows or macOS clients. Due to these capabilities, Visage 7 is able to eliminate the need for expensive, restrictive, dedicated breast imaging workstations. Despite moving upwards of tens of gigabytes of data for current and prior requirements, Visage 7 is able to display the required data incredibly fast for interpretation, local or remote. How many enterprise imaging platforms are able to support remote DBT reading at scale and eliminate dedicated workstations? We’re not aware of any system…..other than Visage 7.
Stay tuned. Next up for "Can you? Visage can" is the critical Chapter 4: In-Viewer Workflow.
