DICOM Media: Files, Folders, and DICOMDIRs

Abstract

A substantial part of this book has been dedicated to DICOM networking, and transmitting data and messages between DICOM AEs over a TCP/IP connection. This is indeed the most common and efficient way to run any medical imaging project. Computer networks provide unsurpassed flexibility, reach, and throughput, allowing you to collaborate with any partner, in any place, at any time. Nevertheless, and quite frequently, we still need to export DICOM data from self-contained clinical networks into some media, be it a flash drive, CD/ DVD, MOD, or another hard drive. We are not talking about the industriallevel PACS archive storage: PACS vendors do it in their own ways (which will be reviewed a bit later in 10.5). DICOM Media Storage uses removable media to occasionally export DICOM data from PACS for external storage, viewing, and transfer into another DICOM application. The classic example is using DICOM CDs (now more commonly replaced by DVDs due to ever-increasing data size). A patient can have his CT scan done in some imaging center. The center might not have a PACS and almost certainly does not have a PACS integrated into the hospital system that referred the patient. So, the imaging center provides the patient with a CD containing his DICOM CT images, and the patient can take the disk to any other destination where he is being treated or accepted for health care.