Projects

Objective: COST B2’s specific objectives, which are based on computerised nuclear medical systems, are the following :

• to develop quality assurance procedures and create organ-based software phantoms with databases, data acquisition standards, etc.;
• to create procedures for evaluation, testing and acceptance of software phantoms and software;
• to assess and co-ordinate development of special software such as knowledge-based systems in nuclear medicine.

General Information: Current status

The Action started on 16 September 1988 and finished on 15 September 1996.

Participation

Sixteen European countries have signed up for the project : Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Norway, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. The European Community officially ratified its participation in the project on 30 July 1990.

In addition, the following organisations participated in the project as observers :

• European Association for Nuclear Medicine (EANM)
• International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
• World Health Organisation (WHO).

Organisation

Nine working groups were set up at the beginning of COST B2, namely :

• WG1 : A standard protocol for the exchange of nuclear medicine image files
• WG2 : Quality assurance of cardiac software
• WG3 : Quality assurance and standardisation of renal software
• WG4 : Quality assurance of cerebral software
• WG5 : Knowledge-based systems (KBS)
• WG6 : Quality assurance of a bone phantom database
• WG7 : Quality assurance of SPECT
• WG8 : User requirements for data systems in nuclear medicine
• WG9 : Software phantom co-ordination & distribution centres

Each working group included representatives from at least five different countries.

Co-ordination of work, EEC & international co-operation

There was active liaison with :

• CEN TC251 WG4 on medical images
• ACR-NEMA on standardisation of image file transfer formats
• European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) : Cardiology Committee, quality Assurance and Standardisation Committee, Neurology Committee
  
• International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) & WHO : Quality Assurance Programmes
• College of American Pathologists : Quality Assurance Programmes
• Japanese Quality Assurance Programme.

Work planned

The project has defined quality conformity testing tools and collective software phantoms for measuring the quality of nuclear medicine software. Also, the standard "Interfile" for the interchange of nuclear medicine image data files has been developed.

During the last phase, methods of measurements of the quality of clinical software used for the analysis of patient studies have been tested.

Continuing updating of the COST B2 database for software phantoms (representative nuclear medicine patient studies) has been achieved subsequent to the termination of the project by transferring these responsibilities to existing and newly created committees and task groups of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM).

Thus, all results of the Action have been transferred into an environment where they will continue to be of use to the audience addressed by the project.