A Reversible Data Hiding Scheme for Efficient Management of Tele-Ophthalmological Data

Abstract

Advancements in medical sciences and induction of advanced technologies have led to increased role of medical images in tele-diagnosis. This paper proposes a technique for easy, efficient and accurate management of distributed medical databases and alleviates the risk of any distortion in images during transmission. It also provides remedy of issues like tampering, accidentally or intentionally, authentication and reliability without affecting the perceptual properties of the image. The technique is blind and completely reversible. Values of PSNR and BER imply that the changes made to original images are imperceptible to the Human Visual System. Performance of the technique has been evaluated for fundus images and the results are extremely encouraging. The technique is lossless and conforms to the firm necessities of medical data management by maintaining perceptual quality and diagnostic significance of the images, therefore is very practical to be used in health care centers.