Introduction to DICOM & its Viewers
Hey Readers! Hope you are doing well. In this article, I’ll be sharing some of my learning in Medical Science Technologies I had learned during one of the best phases of my life…My Summer Internship at e-Yantra Labs, where I got a chance to research in the field of Medical Imaging & Radiology.
Starting from Radiology, So what is Radiology? Where it is used?
It is the medical discipline that uses medical imaging to diagnose and treat diseases within the bodies of animals and humans. It is one of the largest fields in medical science. The doctors specialized in this field are called Radiologists. Radiologists are medical doctors that specialize in diagnosing and treating injuries and diseases using medical imaging (radiology) procedures such as X-rays, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), nuclear medicine, positron emission tomography (PET), and ultrasound.
There are numerous radiology specialties, some of them are Mammography, Sonography, Nuclear medicine, MRI technology, Bone densitometry, Computed tomography (CT), and Fluoroscopy¹. This is some basic information about Radiology.
Now you might be thinking, what is the type of this x-ray, CT-scan images, how these images are stored, shared, and analyzed ??
Now DICOM came into the picture. DICOM is an acronym that stands for “Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine”. It is an international standard for the interchange, storage, and communication of digital medical pictures and other digital data. Its purpose is to assure the interoperability of systems used to create, store, share, display, send, query, process, retrieve, and print medical pictures, as well as manage associated workflows. DICOM files cannot be viewed from a normal image viewing software, it needs some special software to study and visualize the DICOM images and their data sets. It is the standard format for the radiology reports and the file extension for the DICOM files is (.dcm) and the MIME-type is application/dicom.
The DICOM file size is very large and they need a large amount of storage to store, and share. So they need PACS servers for this.
A PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) server is a computer that stores, retrieves, manages, distributes, and displays medical images in the short and long term. A PACS can accept input from either digital or analog sources. A PACS is made up of several components, including image capture equipment, a data management system, image storage devices, a transmission network, display stations, and devices for producing hard-copy images. PACS aims to increase operating efficiency while maintaining or increasing diagnostic capability³.
There are numerous DICOM viewers available on the Internet. Some of them are paid and some of them are free. I had tried many views and I was amazed to see how these DICOM images look as you can see in the image above. It is really a very tough job and needs much experience for someone to analyze or study these images. For that, Hats off to the Doctors!!
This is something interesting I learned during my Internship at e-Yantra, IIT Bombay. e-Yantra is an amazing platform where students not just learn the theoretical concepts, but learn how we can use that theoretical knowledge to solve any real-life problem. e-Yantra organizes many global competitions, and initiatives, I must recommend that one should take part in those events to learn something more valuable and enjoyable.
Thank you for reading :)
[1]: Meinke, H. (2019, December 2).7 radiology specialties that go Beyond x-rays.Rasmussen University.
[2]: https://www.aliza-dicom-viewer.com/download/datasets
[3]: Choplin, R. H. (1992, January 1). Picture archiving and communication systems: An overview. RadioGraphics.
[4]: OsiriX DICOM Viewer Technical Sheet https://www.osirix-viewer.com/resources/technical-sheet/
[5]: RadiAnt DICOM Viewer https://www.radiantviewer.com/dicom-viewer-manual/radiantdicomviewerfeatures.html
[6]: Aeskulap DICOM Viewer — http://www.nongnu.org/aeskulap/features.html.
