DICOM Structured Reporting—a prototype implementation J. Riesmeier a, , M. Eichelberg a , K. Kleber b , H. Oosterwijk c , S. von Gehlen a , D.H.W. Gro ¨nemeyer b , P. Jensch a,d a Kuratorium OFFIS e.V., Escherweg 2, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany b Institute for MicroTherapy, Department of Radiology and MicroTherapy, University Witten/Herdecke, Universita ¨tsstr. 142, 44799 Bochum, Germany c OTech, Inc., 2001 East Oakshores Drive, Crossroads, TX 76227, USA d Carl von Ossietzky Universita ¨t Oldenburg, Postfach 2503, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany Abstract About 1 year ago, Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Structured Reporting (SR) has been released as an official extension of the DICOM standard. Structured Reporting introduces a new concept for structuring and encoding medical reports in a standardised manner. Since this approach is quite different from any other extension that has been added to the DICOM standard in the past, it is not surprising that there is no ‘‘real’’ application available up to now. However, we have developed a DICOM SR editor and viewer, and demonstrated this prototype at RSNA infoRAD 2000 and ECR 2001 together with two of DICOM’s new security extensions: secure network transmission and digital signatures. D 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: DICOM; Structured Reporting; Medical report; Security 1. Introduction Since the initial release in 1993, the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard [1] has not only quite successfully penetrated the PACS domain. At the same time, the standard has significantly broadened its scope from a mere radiology image 0531-5131/01/$ – see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0531-5131(01)00137-6 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-441-972-2142; fax: +49-441-972-2102. E-mail address: riesmeier@offis.de (J. Riesmeier). * International Congress Series 1230 (2001) 795 – 800