DICOM format: definition and practical use in vascular medicine

Abstract

The imaging is essential in vascular medicine for diagnosis and treatment. New imaging techniques since the advent of the spiral CT scan, invented by Hounsfield and Mac Cormack in 1972, brought us a revolution in whole medicine. This has been possible thanks to the development of new standards for imaging, particularly DICOM format. The aim of this paper is to explain what is DICOM and how we use it in vascular medicine. DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine standards) is an universal worldwide format used for medical imaging for all vascular investigation techniques: sonography, CT (computed tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). This format allows 3D reconstruction of the patient's anatomy and gives access to quantification of all anatomical structures of the body, in particular of the vessels. It is achieved with dedicated software called DICOM browsers. These new tools of tridimensional (3D) modeling of the vessels bring us more accurate data of vascular anatomy. They make us enter in an era of new endoscopic and surgical techniques fully based on the image data, and so open the way for simulation, training and augmented reality.