DICOM Standard and Dentistry

[S. Brent Dove]

Hello ORAD,

I would like to take this opportunity to inform the members of the ORAD
list about imaging standards which are being developed.  I am the
chairman of Working Group 2 of the American Dental Association (ADA)
MD156 Task Force on Dental Informatics.  Since 1992, the ADA has been
supporting the development of open standards as they relate to dental
informatics.  My major area of work has be on Clinical and diagnostic
peripheral devices.  This primarily relates to digital imaging devices
such as intraoral video cameras and direct digital radiography systems,
periodontal probing systems, periodontal pocket temperature systems and
occlusal force analysis.

Several white papers have been written on the construction and safety,
infection control and hardware/software interface of these devices.
Currently, the primary focus of Working Group 2 is the development of
standards for the communication of medical and dental images and
associated information.  All efforts have now been directed at extending
the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard to
include those images that relate to dentistry.

For more information on DICOM and Dentistry, please go to the following
web site for more information and links to other DICOM sites.

http://ddsdx.uthscsa.edu/dicom/dicom.html

In 1996, the DICOM activity was completely reorganized to address the
widening scope of the standard.  While DICOM was originally developed to
address the needs of radiology, it now is seen as the basis for all
biomedical imaging.  The new DICOM committee was established in October
of 1996.  This new DICOM committee is composed of representative from all
areas of biomedical imaging.

At the DICOM meeting in December 1996, the Digital Radiography (DR)
Working Group was established to develop a supplement to the DICOM
standard to address the area of digital "projection" or "transmission"
radiography.  This will include over 85% of all medical radiology and 95%
of all dental radiology.   The secretariat of the working group is the
American Dental Association and I am the working group chairman.

I am requesting that any and all parties that may be interested in
serving on this working group, please send me an email message.  Stating
your name, email address, affiliation and primary interest in working on
this standard.  We are currently setting our first meeting date for
Friday, May 30, 1997 in Chicago, IL at the ADA headquarters.  Upon
receiving your email, I will add your name for future meetings.

Thank you,

S. Brent Dove                            Voice: (210) 567-3333
Diagnostic Sciences                      Fax:   (210) 567-3334
University of Texas                      Email: dove at uthscsa.edu
Health Science Center                    Web:   ddsdx.uthscsa.edu
San Antonio, TX    USA                   ftp:   maxrad6.uthscsa.edu