Multi-center clinical trials

De-identify a cohort spanning multiple sites for clinical trial submission.

Problem

A multi-center clinical trial requires submission of de-identified imaging data from multiple hospitals. Each site uses different scanners and naming conventions, so patient identities must be consistently removed across all contributing cohorts while preserving study-level linkage.

Steps

1. Open the DICOM file — click Open files… (⌘O).
2. Switch to Anonymization mode — click the Anon tab (⌘2).
3. Configure the PHI scrubbing profile — select a pre-defined profile (Basic, Safe Harbor, or Limited Dataset) from the profile picker.
4. Review the affected tags — the tag tree highlights all PHI-tagged rows in magenta. Toggle the Show only PHI filter to verify which tags will be modified.
5. Apply anonymization — click Apply & Export to produce a de-identified copy. The original file is never modified.
6. Verify — load the exported file and confirm all PHI fields (PatientName, PatientID, PatientBirthDate) display anonymized values.

Expected Result

• The exported file has no direct patient identifiers.
• PatientName, PatientID, and PatientBirthDate are replaced with anonymized values.
• Study-level linkage (StudyInstanceUID) is preserved for cohort grouping.
• The original DICOM file remains unmodified.
• The audit log records the anonymization action with the profile used.