The minimum attributes for displaying intraoral radiographic digital images under the DICOM standard

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the minimum attributes for display of intraoral (IO) radiographic digital images, on the basis of results of a survey completed by the Japanese Society for Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology (JSOMR). These attributes could then be used to develop proposals for the DICOM Standards Committee. In December 2010, the JSOMR Task Group carried out a survey on display mapping and viewing solutions for IO images in university dental hospitals in Japan. The survey showed that a finite number of templates were in use at Japanese university dental hospitals. However, these templates were too complex for proposals to DICOM, and we thus believed that further simplification of the layout format was necessary to improve operating system efficiency, data transferability, and patient welfare. The JSOMR survey found that eight types of layout format were used at university dental hospitals across Japan; using these data as a starting point, we tested whether reducing the number of formats to three patterns was a viable option. During the reduction of the number of formats, we determined the following discrete imaging attributes: examination classification; image aspect; image size; image location; and projection style. Furthermore, for foreign countries, two patterns, 18 and 22, were added to image location for further clarity. Five attributes are necessary for an effective new layout of IO images using a reference system.