A comprehensive model for medical image data bases

Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) aim at providing an environment to store and retrieve medical images, and to distribute them. Several medical, technological and organizational problems must be solved before PACS can be introduced in clinical environments. In this paper, the specific features of (medical) images and their consequences on the development of Medical Image Data Bases (MIDB) are discussed. In particular we show that new conceptual solutions need to be found, if PACS are to provide more efficient ways of exploiting images.