Integrating patient, technical and radiation protection data in a single DICOM SR document by example of myocard perfusion scintigraphy

Ziel/Aim DICOM is the international standard to transmit, store, retrieve, print, process, and display medical imaging information. DICOM SR (Structured Reporting) provides integration of patient, study and series information together with procedure and measurement data and additional report requirements. Goal was to test the usefulness of DICOM Standard part 16 for the construction of a singular comprehensive DICOM SR.

Methodik/Methods Part 16 of the DICOM standard ‘Content Mapping Resource’ was analyzed for the demands of the German guideline for the myocard perfusion scintigraphy last update 02/2017 including the ordinancies of the national radiation protection authority concerning documentation and reporting. The relevant content was found in Templates 1001 (Observation Context), 1600 (Image Library), 2006 (Imaging Report With Conditional Radiation Exposure and Protection Information), 3300-3320 (Stress Testing Report Templates), 3602 (Cardiovascular Patient Characteristics), 3802 (Cardiovascular Patient History), and 10,021-10,024 (Radiopharmaceutical Radiation Dose).

Ergebnisse/Results The majority of required terms are specified in Part 16 of the DICOM standard. The missing terms can be found in other vocabulary systems.

Schlussfolgerungen/Conclusions The terms can be encoded and built as content items in the content tree of a DICOM SR document. The advantage of DICOM SR is a resulting single all in one document that avoids different documentation and storing modalities of images, technical specifics, radiation protection statements and clinical information. Furthermore, SR documents can be constructed and transformed to ‘human readable’ formats like HTML or XHTML using Open Source toolkits like DCMTK provided by OFFIS, Oldenburg.

• Literatur/References

• 1 http://dicom.nema.org/medical/dicom/current/output/pdf/part16.pdf.