Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine DICOM

History

The DICOM Standard 1. networked environment. 2. off-line media environment 3. It specifies how devices claiming conformance to the Standard react to commands and data being exchanged 4.. not only for images and graphics but also 5.. for waveforms, reports, printing, etc 6. It is a technique for uniquely identifying any Information Object

Who needs DICOM?

DICOM can be in:

Field Of Application  The DICOM Standard facilitates interoperability of medical imaging equipment by specifying: -For network communications -The syntax and semantics -For media communication

How does DICOM work?

DICOM – Patient Identification Attributes

Attribute Structure 128 bytes 4 bytes (four characters: ”DICM”)

DICOM VIEWER

Dicom FILE  Alias Name: AMNESIX Modality: CT 16/64 File Size: 157 MB Description: CTA abdomen and lower extremities runoff of a patient with an illiac an eurysme pre and post stent placement recorded on a 16 detector CT (pre) and a 64 detector CT (post)

Future Of Dicom  The DICOM standard is never more than 2 months old  new CT objects and also 3-D objects  In general, acquisition is moving to multi-dimensional, 3-D or more, and DICOM is following that trend

Benefit: Once the studies are sent to PACS, physicians are able to digitally view the studies anywhere on the hospital network. This increases efficiency and eliminates the use of film and videotape.

Conclusion  DICOM is not only an image file format. Its is primarily a networking protocol.  It’s the “boss” of the digital medical applications for data and images in medical activities.  DICOM has several parts which describes the procedures of the digital object to analyze.  DICOM uses several types of formats of compression for both images and text.  PACS (hardware and software) and DICOM are closed related.

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