Selective archiving of radiologic images

The increasing number of radiographic images is a problem in most radiology departments. The problem will be emphasized with the introduction of digital acquisition and storage of radiographs. Changes in image management strategies will therefore become necessary. Such strategies will have great technologic and financial impact and will probably determine the applicability and success of digital radiography. Based on the experience that not all radiographs are equally important and on the assumption that not every image in a radiology archive can be maintained on-line, we investigated the effect of storing only selected, clinically informative radiographs; i.e., clinical data compression. In 165 routine examinations (77 barium enemas, 16 barium meals and 72 urographies) 2433 films were used (14.7 films per examination). We archived only the 461 films (19%) which were considered to be of future informative value. During a one-year follow-up period none of the 1972 removed films was requested. This indicates that a considerable number of films and a considerable amount of image data can be removed from the archive without affecting the clinical work.