DICOM Files
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is the technical standard used for storing and transmitting medical images and related information. DICOM files are structured to enable communication across the software and hardware created by different manufacturers that is used collectively in medical imaging.
DICOM files can generally be structured into two parts:
- Metadata - The metadata includes patient information (name, ID, age, etc.), imaging modality details (such as CT, MRI, or X-ray), imaging parameters (resolution, dimensions, orientation, etc.), and other information relevant to the image.
- Image Data Set - The image data set contains medical images that are not rendered for reviewing.
Canopy’s processing makes the metadata in DICOM files accessible to assessors and reviewers mining for personal data.
The general workflow for review of DICOM files is outlined here. Depending on the team, your workflow may differ. Regardless, there are two main steps:
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Filter on all DICOM files with detected fields.
Add all detected elements containing the doctor or patient information to their respective entities. Patient information is generally found within the DICOM tags starting at 0010.
-
Filter on all DICOM files with comments, notes, or history fields.
Review comments, notes, and history fields for personal information.
Navigate to the Templates section of Project Settings and click on Processing Templates. Scroll down and select General PII under PII Detection Options to detect patient and doctor information. Files containing free text or custom fields will be tagged with Comments/Free Text for manual review. No sub selection is required.
To find the DICOM files in your data population, open the filter panel on the right side of the screen and click on .dcm under File Type:
You may also filter on the DICOM files by using the File Type column filter:
Enter the command filetype:".dcm" to search on all DICOM files:
When using Advanced Search, .dcm can be selected from the Any of these or None of these extensions:
The following DICOM field names will be highlighted so they can be mapped to the field Canopy Standard Entity Field:
A known issue exists when adding Patient’s Birth Date. We identified an issue where the user may not be able to add the date of birth to the entity panel without manually manipulating the format. A fix for this issue will be deployed in a future release.
| DICOM Name | DICOM Tag | Canopy Standard Entity Field |
|---|---|---|
| Patient’s Name | (0010, 0010) | Name |
| Patient ID | (0010, 0020) | PatientID |
| Patient’s Birth Date | (0010, 0030) | Birth Date |
| Patient’s Sex | (0010, 0040) | Sexual Orientation |
| Other Patient Names | (0010, 1001) | Name |
| Patient’s Birth Name | (0010, 1005) | Name |
| Patient’s Age | (0010, 1010) | Age |
| Patient’s Address | (0010, 1040) | Address |
| Patient’s Mother’s Birth Name | (0010, 1060) | Name |
| Patient’s Telephone Numbers | (0010, 2154) | Phone |
| Patient’s Religion | (0010, 21F0) | Religion |
| Physician(s) of Record | (0008, 1048) | Name |
| Operators’ Name | (0008, 1070) | Name |
| Consulting Physician’s Name | (0008, 009c) | Name |
| Referring Physician’s Telephone Numbers | (0008, 0094) | Phone |
| Referring Physician’s Address | (0008, 0092) | Address |
| Referring Physician’s Name | (0008, 0090) | Name |
| Institution Address | (0008, 0081) | Address |
| Manufacturer | (0008, 0070) | Organization |
| Institution Name | (0008, 0080) | Organization |
| Performing Physician’s Name | (0008, 1050) | Name |
| Secondary Reviewer Name | (0014, 0104) | Name |
| Scheduled Performing Physician’s Name | (0040, 0006) | Name |
| Names of Intended Recipients of Results | (0040, 1010) | Name |
| Order Entered By | (0040, 2008) | Name |
| Human Performer’s Name | (0040, 4037) | Name |
| Verifying Observer Name | (0040, A075) | Name |
| Person Name | (0040, A123) | Name |
| Verifying Observer Name | (0040, A075) | Name |
| Person’s Address | (0040, 1102) | Address |
| Person’s Telephone Numbers | (0040, 1103) | Phone |
| Distribution Name | (4008, 0119) | Name |
| Distribution Address | (4008, 011A) | Address |
| Reviewer Name | (300E, 0008) | Name |
The standard field names listed above will be highlighted on the Document Info page.
A new standard entity field has been created called Organization.
This feature is a planned future enhancement.
Documents containing free form fields like comments, notes, or history will automatically be marked with the tag comments. Reviewers can search and manually check for PII on these fields:
| DICOM Name | DICOM Tag | Tag |
|---|---|---|
| Image Comments | (0020, 4000) | Comments/Free Text |
| Visit Comments | (0038, 4000) | Comments/Free Text |
| Imaging Service Request Comments | (0040, 2400) | Comments/Free Text |
| Receiver Notes | (0014, 400C) | Comments/Free Text |
| Patient Comments | (0010, 4000) | Comments/Free Text |
| Additional Patient History | (0010, 21B0) | Comments/Free Text |
| Acquisition Comments | (0018, 4000) | Comments/Free Text |
| Pre-Medication | (0040, 0012) | Comments/Free Text |
| Patient State | (0038, 0500) | Comments/Free Text |
Enter the command meta.tag:"comments" to search on all DICOM files that have comments or notes fields:
