Introduction

  • 6 minutes

DICOM® (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) is the international standard for medical images, imaging formats, and related information. It's the ISO 12052 standard that defines the data quality and exchange specifications for images to meet clinical use requirements. Digitization of medical imaging data by using the DICOM® standard enables health data interoperability.

Why DICOM® is important

In the DICOM® standard, images can be stored and transmitted between DICOM® compatible devices, picture archiving and communications systems (PACS), vendor neutral archives (VNAs), and other systems. For more information on DICOM® standard, see DICOM.

DICOM® data, also referred to as a DICOM® object, contains two types of data:

  • Image data

  • Metadata

DICOM® makes medical imaging data into useable structured data, opening data silos, and allowing interoperability between compatible systems. The following screenshot is an example of imaging data.

Screenshot of a lung x-ray showing DICOM® tags.

DICOM® revolutionized the way that radiologists and practitioners collect and share medical images through digitization of various imaging modalities such as:

  • X-rays

  • CT scans

  • Ultrasound

  • MRI

  • Mammography

  • PET scans

  • Digital pathology

The following video describes the DICOM® data model and demonstrates how to share DICOM® images.