Show Me What's Wrong Inside: Making 3D Medical Data Accessible to Everyone

Google Tech Talks November, 6 2007 ABSTRACT Millions of diagnostic 3D radiological scans (such as MRI and CT) are performed in the US each year. Chances are that you or a family member will receive such a scan during your lifetime. In all likelihood, the scan will be interpreted by a radiologist in less than 11 minutes (abdomen), 10 minutes (chest), or 4 minutes (brain), after which the data will be delegated to an archive. Although patients may request and receive a copy of their data (DICOM format on a CD) as part of their medical record, most do not have the capability to see their own internal anatomy and/or pathology and are utterly dependent on expert interpretation. Different physicians may suggest differing diagnoses or treatment plans, in which case the patient's decision process may benefit from additional information. We propose a mechanism for allowing individuals to submit their 3D radiological datasets to an online service to allow visualization and comparison. The submitter can choose to see an individual image, an animation, or a 3D model of the data. The submitter can "see others like me" to compare with other datasets from patients with similar diagnoses, and compare different outcomes among those datasets. The service provider will be in a unique position to support new modalities of medical research on the large quantity of archi...