[Image data bases and multimedia works on server and CD-ROM in medical imaging. A French experience]

The CD-ROM technology allows the production of multimedia works which costs far less than books do. The creation of Internet and the servers World Wide Web has the advantage of distributing those works world wide, without the difficulties and the delays related to books and magazines distribution. The Teachers' Council of Radiology of France (CERF) and the French Society of Radiology (SFR) have opted to use these new media and these information highways to spread a part of their radiology teaching work. Iconocerf is a software program which allows to create, store, read and to exchange digitized radiological cases. It's available free of charge, within the CERF and SFR. The CD-ROMs Iconocerf-Medimag contain 3,500 radiological files with 15,000 images, previously on the videodisc Medimag. The Server of the French Radiology is a W3 server which includes: the CERF directory, a guide for the teachers, the research workers and the students in Radiology and Medical Imaging. It also contains the teaching works on Radiology, and some Iconocerf clinical cases translated onto HTML. The aim of this project is to create an evaluation system for radiology. By using key words, this system allows to consult: radiological clinical cases, located on the server or on CD-ROMs; reference texts; and to have access to the experts' addresses to be able to send them eventually a difficult case through electronic mail.