[Management and transmission of medical images. Main standards and norms]

Use of digital images is growing in medical imaging. To be efficient, up-to-date concepts such as distributed informatics and client/server architecture must be used. Interoperability and networks adapted to the data involved in medical imaging are prerequisites to the implementation of such concepts. This necessitates official and de facto standards. Users of medical imaging should be aware of these standards and insist on the implementation of such standards on imaging equipment. This paper presents a survey of the main standards suitable for medical image management and transmission. Particular attention is focused on DICOM which is becoming the worldwide recognized standard in the field of medical imaging.