Create new Structured Reports using standard clinical templates
Generate standard clinical Structured Reports from clinical template input.
A DICOM Structured Report (SR) stores findings as a tree of coded content items rather than as free text, so other software can read each value with its meaning and units. dcmage builds that tree for you from a template: you type the values into a form, and it writes a new Comprehensive SR file (SOP Class 1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.33).
The built-in template
dcmage ships one template, RECIST 1.1 Tumor Response. Its document title is the DCM code 126000, Imaging Measurement Report, and it has five fields:
| Field | Type | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Target Lesion Sum of Diameters | Number, mm | Yes |
| Nadir Sum of Diameters | Number, mm | No |
| New Lesions Present | Text | Yes |
| Overall Tumor Response | Text | Yes |
| Measurement Comment | Text | No |
Each field carries its own concept code (DCM, or RadLex for new lesions), and numeric fields carry UCUM units. You can also load your own template as JSON, or save the current one, with Load template… and Save template…. See Custom SR templates for clinical trial templates.
Steps
- Open an image of the study the report belongs to (⌘O).
- Open the command palette (⌘K) and run Author Structured Report….
- Pick the template and fill in the fields. Numeric fields accept numbers only.
- Click Create Report. The browser downloads the
.dcmfile, and the Mac app shows a save panel.
What the file contains
- Patient name, ID, birth date and sex, study date, accession number and Study Instance UID are copied from the open image, so the report files under the same study. A new series and a new SOP Instance UID are created.
- The Series Description is the template name and the Manufacturer is “dcmage”.
- Empty optional fields are left out of the content tree.
- dcmage refuses to write the report when a required field is empty, a number does not parse, or the template is malformed.
With no study open, the patient fields fall back to placeholder values and a new Study Instance UID is created.
Result
A Comprehensive SR file with the coded findings, ready to open in the SR tab of dcmage or in another DICOM viewer. Creating a report is recorded in the audit log.