DICOM standards for patient dosimetry

Abstract

Data related to patient radiation exposure during radiologic procedures can be stored and communicated using the non-image information object definitions (non IOD) DICOM objects. More specifically, there are three DICOM objects in the standard that can be used to transport exposure information: the DICOM header, the DICOM Modality Performed Procedure Step (MPPS) and the DICOM Radiation Dose Structured Report (RDSR). All these objects have several advantages and some limitations. All the mentioned objects are carrying information about equipment output and do not provide any information on patient dose. The most complete of the three objects previously mentioned is the DICOM RDSR, which was added to the Standard in 2005. This object transports the information related to the equipment output along with information about the patient and the procedure that could be used to estimate the exposure to the patient. Although unfortunately this information is not complete. Moreover some new modalities (e.g: CBCT) need specific attributes to be stored and communicated and the present RDSR structure needs to be enhanced to allow it. Furthermore none of this DICOM object includes a template for patient-specific dose data to be recorded after estimation. For this reason a new DICOM object, the Patient Radiation Dose Structured Report (P-RDSR) has being developed. The new P-RDSR will provide the archival tool to record the results of the estimations and the methodology used to achieve this estimate.