Clinical importance of the DICOM structured reporting standard

The purpose of the DICOM Structured Reporting (SR) specification is to impr ove the documentation of diagnostic images and waveforms. The specification supports the interchange of expressive compound reports in which the criti cal features shown by images and waveforms can be denoted unambiguously by the observer, indexed, and retrieved selectively by subsequent reviewers. F indings may be expressed by the observer as: 1) text, codes, numeric measur ements; 2) computer-generated coordinates of specific regions of interest w ithin images or waveforms; or 3) references to comparison images, sound, wa veforms, curves, and previous report information. The observational and his torical findings recorded by the observer may include any evidence referenc ed as part of an interpretation procedure. Thus, DICOM SR supports not only the reporting of diagnostic observations, but the capability to document f ully the evidence that evoked the observations. This capability provides si gnificant new opportunities for large-scale collection of structured data f or clinical research, training, and outcomes assessment as a routine by-pro duct of diagnostic image and waveform interpretation and facilitates the po oling of structured data for multi-center clinical trials and evaluations.