How to display Series data from DICOM C-FIND results?

Question

I'm new to DICOM and was wondering how I would be able to return results of a C-FIND similar to how applications like Osirix display them after a query.

I'm doing this strictly in Python with pynetdicom and displaying results back in a GUI. At the moment, I've extracted each identifier separately with regex to display, but this doesn't enable me to incorporate each individual series. I'm running my queries at the 'STUDY' level.

I can query/retrieve and display the identifiers from other PACS, but I'm not sure how to go about displaying the examination results from other PACS databases at the study level and then be able to drop-down and view each series.

I'm just about complete with this test project, and can currently read in DICOM files, add to database upon receiving them, Query/retrieve from various PACS. Display and transfer images received to another archive from local folder. I just cannot figure out the above, there has to be a better way of doing this than how I have it currently configured. See image of how I am currently returning results.

I'm sure this is possible with pynetdicom, I'm just not sure how to go about doing this.

Answer 1

To expand from Study- to Series-Level you would basically form a request like this:

(0008,0052) [SERIES]
(0020,000d) [<the study instance UID that you obtained from the Study-Level query>]
(0020,000e) []

This is the minimum that you need. The QueryRetrieveLevel (0008,0052) indicates that this is a series level query. The Study Instance UID (0020,000d) is a matching key (the only one allowed) to match series of a particular study, and the Series Instance UID (0020,000e) is what you will need to C-MOVE the series at a user's request or to query for images of the series subsequently.

Further attributes on SERIES-Level (and nothing else) may be included with zero-length. This way you are instructing the SCP to fill them in with the values from the database as you already did for the STUDY-Level. Typically the doctor wants to see:

• Modality (0008,0060)
• Series Date (0008,0021)
• Series Time (0008,0031)
• Series Description (0008,103E)

Note that not all of them are mandatory return keys which means the SCP may return them with zero-length.

Also note that this example refers to the Study-Root Q/R information model. For Patient-Root, you would have to include the Patient ID (0010,0020) as a matching key (= with value) as well to say "Please give me the series of this particular study of this particular patient".

Further recommended reading is the description of the Query/Retrieve Service Class