Although the AIM standard had been utilized previously with the open-source OsiriX application, the team sought to implement it with a commercial PACS in hopes of nudging the standard along the path to routine clinical and research use, according to presenter Daniel Rubin, MD, from Stanford, CA.
While users annotate images on the workstation, an AIM document is produced simultaneously and transparently to the user. The AIM objects, which contain all pertinent image metadata, are stored in a separate database from the images. This is done to enable image querying and to limit any performance impact on the PACS database, according to the researchers.
A software module was also created to analyze AIM annotations, creating automated quantitative summaries of lesion measurements for tracking tumor burden, according to the researchers.
"[AIM] is going to be important in cases where quantitation is important, and more and more of radiology is heading to quantitation," he told AuntMinnie.com.
In a related demonstration, the research team will also show additional use of AIM by other vendors during an exhibit in the RSNA's Quantitative Image Reading Room, which aims to highlight products that integrate quantitative analysis into the image interpretation process.
