Higher Rates of Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD)

The need for cardiac imaging capabilities are more important than ever as the aging population combined with a significant increase in obesity contribute to a growing demand for advanced cardiovascular diagnostics. With cardiovascular disease (CVD) as the leading cause of death in the United States, and coronary heart disease as the leading cause of CVD-related deaths, accounting for more than 50 percent of all CVD deaths, there have been dramatic improvements in cardiac imaging capabilities in recent years.

Imaging in Cardiology

Cardiovascular health is diagnosed and evaluated primarily through the use of stress tests, echocardiography and minimally invasive catheterization. This data is used in such labs to create digital images. Today, most are adopting digital imaging technologies.

However, cardiology imaging is moving beyond catheterization and echocardiography. CT (Computed Tomography) 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 and archiving.

ImageGrid - Archiving for Cardiology Imaging

Cardiology PACS and the digitization of cardiology images has increased the need for the electronic storage of images in a networked digital archive. ImageGrid PACS archive provide reliable, cost-effective and scalable solutions capable of receiving images from any cardiology DICOM modality and provides physicians with immediate access to images at any time and from anywhere.

As a DICOM Storage Server appliance, ImageGrid can be used as a stand-alone archiving solution in a pre-PACS cardiology practice or department or 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.