1. DICOM - Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine

2. DICOM – Contents A short Definition History Facts, Figures, Examples
Future

3. DICOM – A short Definition
The Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine standard (short: DICOM) is THE standard for exchanging medical images in a digital format.
Currently it consists of 16 different parts, addressing the DICOM protocol, its formats and specifying its conformance.

4. DICOM – History
In the early 80‘s, vendors felt comfortable with supporting proprietary communication standards because it locked their customers to purchasing their products.
To get rid of this unsatisfying situation the American College of Radiology (ACR) together with the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) developed three standard versions in the years from 1981 till 1993 (ARC-NEMA 1.0 & 2.0; DICOM 3.0).

5. DICOM – Facts & Figures (1)
No ANSI-Standard
Changing to an ANSI-Standard would bring more restrictions than benefits (see HL7).
Many different approaches for one goal
Developed voluntarily by vendors and users.
Complexity
Language and concepts of the Object-Oriented world of thinking.

6. DICOM – Facts & Figures (2)
Slow Development
DICOM standard is still only being used for medical imaging -> somewhat of a niche application.

7. DICOM – DICOM Objects Smallest Unit of Information
Self contained file, not very different from any other file, f.e. a text-document. (CT, MRI, …)
Consists of the header and the content
The header contains a long stream of textual information, specific to the type of content.
UIDs within the Header
Study, Series, Individual Image, Modality, Date, ...

8. DICOM – SOP Classes
The entity that initiates use of a service is known as the service class user (SCU), the provider is known as the service class provider (SCP).
When setting up a DICOM connection, there is a negotiation process, where it comes clear what capability the decive supports and what not.
These capabilities are clearly specified and identified in the standard as so-called SOP Classes.

9. DICOM – Pixelmed Java Toolkit
This is a stand-alone DICOM toolkit that implements code for reading and creating DICOM data, DICOM network and file support, a database of DICOM objects, support for display of directories, images, reports and spectra, and DICOM object validation.
Attribute name = new PersonNameAttribute(TagFromName.PatientName);
name.addValue("Homer J. Simpson");
attributes.put(TagFromName.PatientName, name);
Result: 0010,0010,Patient's Name=Homer J. Simpson

10. DICOM – Patient Identification Attributes

11. DICOM – ezDICOM
Medical Image Viewer

12. DICOM – Future Use DICOM for storing data
Not „only“ sending and printing
“New” Image-Types
Endoscopy, Pathology, other „visible light“ devices
Standard is and will always be up-to-date
The DICOM standard is typically never more than 2
months old.