Content-based organisation of virtual repositories of DICOM objects

Abstract

The integration of multi-centre medical image data to create knowledge repositories for research and training activities has been an aim targeted since long ago. This paper presents an environment to share, to process and to organise medical imaging data according to a structured framework in which the image reports play a key role. This environment has been validated on a clinical environment, facing problems such as firewalls and security restrictions, in the frame of the CVIMO (Valencian Cyberinfrastructure of Medical Imaging in Oncology) project. The environment uses a middleware called TRENCADIS (Towards a Grid Environment for Processing and Sharing DICOM Objects) that provides users with the management of multiple administrative domains, data encryption and decryption on the fly and semantic indexation of images. Data is structured into four levels: Global data available, virtual federated storages of studies shared across a vertical domain, subsets for projects or experiments on the virtual storage and individual searches on these subsets. This structure of levels gives the needed flexibility for organising authorisation, and hides data that are not relevant for a given experiment. The main components and interactions are shown in the document, outlining the workflows and explaining the different approaches considered, including the protocols used and the difficulties met.