Collaborative annotation of medical images via web browser for teleradiology

This article presents the design and implementation of a web-based medical image annotation system for teleradiology. Different from other applications, the system is accessed via web browser, and allows geographically separated radiologists to interpret and annotate the same medical image collaboratively. The system supports annotation of multi-slice medical image rendered from any axis. A data model, named Medical Image Annotation Model (MIAM), is proposed to describe and store annotations made by different radiologists to the same medical image. Using service oriented architecture (SOA), we design a system framework to support collaboration among radiologists. We also propose a method for medical image distribution from web server to web browser. A prototype system is built according to the Rich Internet Application paradigm. System evaluation in terms of system usability and performance of collaborative image annotation has been performed in order to prove the availability of the system.