Routing based upon specific DICOM tag

cdeem · Post by **cdeem** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:49 pm

Via the "constants.php" file, I have added the DICOM tag 0008 0100, which is the Exam Code. When I look at the DICOM meta within a study that is stored on the PacsOne server, that particular tag is not viewable. Since PacsOne is not displaying that info, am I still able to create a route rule based upon that tag?

My concern is even though I have added it via the "constants.php" file, that PacsOne is not recognizing the tag to appropriately route the study.

Post by **pacsone** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:00 pm

The (0008,0100) tag is Code Value which should be part of a sequence tag, so it'd not be possible to route based on the value of an embedded item from a sequence tag.

cdeem · Post by **cdeem** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 3:14 pm

So if I wanted to create a rule base upon an exam mnemonic or exam code, what DICOM tag would I use for that?

Post by **pacsone** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 4:09 pm

It'd have to be a non-sequence tag, i.e., a tag which is not embedded as part of a sequence data.

cdeem · Post by **cdeem** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 4:58 pm

How can you determine what is a sequence tag vs. a non-sequence tag?

cdeem · Post by **cdeem** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 5:05 pm

Basically I want to determine what tags I can actually create rules from.

Post by **pacsone** » Fri Mar 22, 2013 3:29 pm

cdeem wrote:How can you determine what is a sequence tag vs. a non-sequence tag?

The list of all Dicom tags can be found in Part 6 of the Dicom standards, and all sequence tags are labeled as SQ type.

cdeem · Post by **cdeem** » Fri Mar 22, 2013 3:34 pm

So just to verify, I can create a rule based upon any DICOM tag that is NOT a sequence tag. Correct?

Post by **pacsone** » Sat Mar 23, 2013 10:42 pm

Not exactly. PacsOne Server supports most (not any) non-sequence tags for automatic routing, as it uses its own Dicom dictionary based on Part 6 of the Dicom standards.

If the particular tag you want is not yet supported, you can always submit a feature request to add it to the list of supported Dicom attributes for automatic routing.

cdeem · Post by **cdeem** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 3:17 pm

Can you please tell which tags are supported, or is there somewhere within the application I can look as a reference?

Post by **pacsone** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 4:48 pm

Current list of supported routing key attributes can be found in the $ROUTE_KEY_TBL array in the php/constants.php script under the directory where PacsOne is installed, and you can add more to that list as any data that's parsed into the PacsOne Server database can be used as the routing key attributes, e.g., Patient ID, Study ID, Series Number, Instance Number, etc. But it's too long to list them all here, so exactly what tag are you interested in using as the routing key?

cdeem · Post by **cdeem** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:04 pm

Ideally using the following key would have been the best case scenario.

(0008,0100) Code Value CodeValue SH 1

I'm trying to find an alternative to this, perhaps the Study Description

(0008,1030) Study Description StudyDescription LO 1

The problem with using this is that potentially the Study Description can be changed, whereas the mnemonic, or "Code Value" cannot be edited. Is there by chance a workaround, or would it be possible to include the ability to route based upon Code Value in the future?

**The codes above were copied directly from the DICOM Standard: Part 6 documentation**

Post by **pacsone** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:21 pm

As mentioned previously, the Code Value (0008,0100) tag is part of a sequence tag which means it cannot be used as the routing key (think about what if multiple sequences having different Code Value items).

On the other hand, the Study Description (0008,1030) can certainly be used as the routing key attribute. This is regardless of whether or not the value can be edited because the routing is performed when the study is received, i.e., PacsOne makes the routing decision based on the current value at the time when the study is received.