An open source toolkit for medical imaging de-identification

Objective Medical imaging acquired for clinical purposes can have several legitimate secondary uses in research projects and teaching libraries. No commonly accepted solution for anonymising these images exists because the amount of personal data that should be preserved varies case by case. Our obj...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European radiology 2010-08, Vol.20 (8), p.1896-1904
Main Authors: Rodríguez González, David, Carpenter, Trevor, van Hemert, Jano I., Wardlaw, Joanna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Collaboration
Computer Applications
Computer Security
Confidentiality
Data Mining - methods
Diagnostic Radiology
Digital imaging
Identification
Imaging
Internal Medicine
Interventional Radiology
Medical imaging
Medical research
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Neuroradiology
Patient Identification Systems - methods
Personal information
Privacy
Programming Languages
Radiology
Radiology Information Systems - organization & administration
Software
Ultrasound
United Kingdom
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Description
Summary:Objective Medical imaging acquired for clinical purposes can have several legitimate secondary uses in research projects and teaching libraries. No commonly accepted solution for anonymising these images exists because the amount of personal data that should be preserved varies case by case. Our objective is to provide a flexible mechanism for anonymising Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data that meets the requirements for deployment in multicentre trials. Methods We reviewed our current de-identification practices and defined the relevant use cases to extract the requirements for the de-identification process. We then used these requirements in the design and implementation of the toolkit. Finally, we tested the toolkit taking as a reference those requirements, including a multicentre deployment. Results The toolkit successfully anonymised DICOM data from various sources. Furthermore, it was shown that it could forward anonymous data to remote destinations, remove burned-in annotations, and add tracking information to the header. The toolkit also implements the DICOM standard confidentiality mechanism. Conclusion A DICOM de-identification toolkit that facilitates the enforcement of privacy policies was developed. It is highly extensible, provides the necessary flexibility to account for different de-identification requirements and has a low adoption barrier for new users.
ISSN:0938-7994
1432-1084
DOI:10.1007/s00330-010-1745-3