Recently, while working on some built-in kitchen cabinets, I cut off my finger using a table saw. It was a very unfortunate accident and re-cooperation is going slowly. The pain has been so terrible that I have not had the will to write articles... or doing anything! Finally, I am regaining some feeling in my finger and am starting some basic physical therapy (typing counts!).
I had several x-rays done of my hand to assess the damage to the bone in my finger. While on the x-ray table in the emergency room I wondered what operating systems they used for their computers and what medical software was available for linux users (can you imagine that was what I was thinking while hopped up on morphine??). Please check out a previous article we did about a program called FREEDIAMS that will show possibly dangerous drug interactions. You could save your life or that of a loved one with it.
This article is about a DICOM viewing program. DICOM files are an industry standard for medical images. DICOM files can consist of one single image or a set of images. Doctors use these sort of files on a daily basis when reviewing patient xrays and charts.
Ginkgo CADx is one of the nicest DICOM viewers available to Ubuntu linux users. It provides a complete DICOM viewer solution with advanced capabilities and support for extensions. With Ginkgo you can open almost all DICOM image forms, you will be able to open it and compare with a highly customizable interface.
Ginkgo CADx can convert conventional image formats like JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP and PDF documents to DICOM format and export images in a DICOM file to the same various image formats. This is useful for doctors who want to email another doctor a single xray image instead of a whole DICOM file which could be quite large.
This program comes with a complete tool set, it can handle 3D reconstruction of DICOM images, can use a variety of extensions and has plenty of modalities support such as neurological, radiological, dermathological, ophthalmological, ultrasound, endoscopy, and more.
There are other free DICOM viewers available in the Ubuntu Software Center, but this looks to have the most features and the most user friendly interface.
While this program my not be put to use by the average Ubuntu user, we do hope it will be searched for by doctors and be seen by doctors who already use Ubuntu or other flavors of linux. With over 63,220 programs available to Ubuntu users now, (most of them free) Ubuntu linux has a program for just about every career, industry or walk of life.
* This article was typed entirely using one hand! Woohoo!
It's very rare to see nice articles about medical softwares! Congratulations
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