Telepathology Research Initial Results on Image Compression Saunya Williams, Dr' Nikil Jayant, Dr' A

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Telepathology Research - Initial Results on Image
CompressionSaunya Williams, Dr. Nikil Jayant,
Dr. Alexis CarterGeorgia Institute of Technology
and Emory University
Telepathology consists of a digital environment
used for managing, interpreting, sharing, and
transmitting pathological information to a remote
site via a telecommunications link. While the
technology for telepathology has been available
for several years, it has yet to be fully adopted
as commonplace amongst pathologist. Several
challenges hinder the widespread application of
telepathology, such as diagnostic accuracy,
patient data security, medical liability, and
image quality. The size of a digitized glass
slide specimen is quite significant (up to 25
Megapixels). Hence, the importance of image
compression. Typically, JPEG compresses 301 to
501 with defects varying from small to moderate.
The peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is commonly
used in image processing to measure the quality
of two images. Without the presence of a clear
standard for digital imaging within
telepathology, image quality lacks a metric in
terms of diagnostic losslessness and remains
vulnerable to subjectivity. This project
includes a variety of digital slides provided by
Emory University that are compressed using JPEG.
The research on image compression will facilitate
the development of criteria to ensure diagnostic
accuracy. These findings will be invaluable in
helping to increase the application of
telepathology and the establishment of a
telepathology network within the Emory healthcare
system.
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Telepathology Research - Initial Results on Image
CompressionSaunya Williams, Dr. Nikil Jayant,
Dr. Alexis CarterGeorgia Institute of Technology
and Emory University
Examples of the original image and its coarsely
compressed reconstruction.
Original Tumor 5.76 MB
Original Cyst 5.76 MB
Original Carcinoma 5.76 MB
42 KB, PSNR 21.0 dB
39 KB, PSNR 22.0 dB
40 KB, PSNR 25.2 dB