There are 3 sections in the DICOM Configuration, De-identification, DICOM SCP and DICOM Actions.
When the RadPix DICOM SCP receives a DICOM image, a series of events occur.
- De-identification of the header of the DICOM is done, according to the Basic Confidentiality Profile, from DICOM Part 15 Chapter E Basic Confidentiality profile, available at https://dicom.nema.org/dicom/2013/output/chtml/part15/chapter_E.html. This removes patient information from the header part of the DICOM file. Several additional tags have been added to the list as part of the RadPix configuration. Note: Tag (0008,103e) “Series Description” is retained by RadPix by default, as it is used to separate and label images in the study,
- Blackout or whiteout of certain parts of images, such as ultrasound images, which commonly have patient information embedded in the image pixel data.
- Certain DICOM files which are known to commonly have patient information, or are not valuable in a teaching file format are discarded. For instance, CT dose display, scanned in documents, etc.
There is a basic set of parameters for each of the above functions, and additional settings may be added by the RadPix administrator.
De-identification
The DICOM De-identification file, deidentification.xml is located in the RadPix/config folder on the RadPix server.
Additional tags that are removed include:
DICOM Overlays" (60xx,xxxx) (x is a wildcard value. In this case all DICOM groups that begin with "60" are removed)
Instance Creation Date" (0008,0012)
Study Arrival Date" (0032,1040)
Study Arrival Time" (0032,1041)
Study Completion Date" (0032,1050)
Study Completion Time" (0032,1051)DICOM SCP
| DICOM SCP Enabled | Enable or disable DICOM SCP client to receive DICOM images from PACS or other workstation. |
| DICOM SCP Listener | Start or stop DICOM SCP listener. |
| Max Images Per Case (0 for unlimited) | If value is 0, all DICOM images received will be added to a case. If a value > 0 is entered, when that number of images is received, additional images from that patient will be discarded. |
| Blackout Ultrasound Rows (disabled = 0 top > 0 bottom < 0) | Legacy ultrasound devices often embed patient information into the images. Using this option, rows of pixels will be blacked out at the top or bottom of images. |
| Ignore Ultrasounds | Some legacy ultrasound devices create images with patient information embedded in the image data. RadPix can be configured to black out certain regions in DICOM images. This option allows ALL ultrasound images to be discarded when they are received by RadPix. Note: the black out tool can be used to manually black out areas of a DICOM image in edit mode. |
| Detailed Logging | Extensive detailed logging will occur when this option is turned on. This should be used for debugging only. Otherwise, the logs will become very large quickly and possibly slow the server down. |
| Save Original DICOMs to incoming images folder | When DICOM images are received, put a copy of each images into the {RadPix Install Folder}/data/incomingimages folder. |
| Process all Draft cases for missing DICOMs | All Draft case DICOM images are reviewed and processed with new parameters. This may be useful to evaluate anonymization parameters, for instance. |
| Called AE Title Mapping | The Called AETitle is a parameter used during a DICOM transmission. The options include: Subspecialty, Storage and Permissions. |
| Calling AE Title Mapping | The Calling AETitle is a parameter used during a DICOM transmission. The options include: Subspecialty, Storage and Permissions. |
| New Case Default Permissions for DICOMSCP | When DICOM images are received and put into cases by RadPix, the default read permissions can be set to any of the groups in the RadPix system. By default, this value is set to GROUP_DEPARTMENT, which is the group typically assigned to logged in users. |
| Overwrite Update Permissions on 1st Save | This option allows the Update permission to be set on first save in Draft status. |
DICOM Actions
The dicomActions.xml file is located in the RadPix/config folder on the RadPix server. Based on a DICOM tag value, the image can be ignored, as showed in the image above. For instance, all images that contains “PACSGEAR” in the “Manufacturer” DICOM tag (0008,0070) are discarded by the DICOM SCP server when they are received.
Click to see how to process and remove images from quarantine.