3D Ultrasound?

[thatg...@gmail.com]

Hello all,

I've just set up an Orthanc server at a small-ish doctor's office as a place to offload images from our ultrasound machines. Once I got through the config file, it is working beautifully with one exception. Our U/S machines (Samsung Sonoace R7) are capable of taking 3D image captures, and they just don't seem to be able to send data to Orthanc. What it does send is the static 2D capture, without any extra 3D information.

When saved to an external drive (USB or CD/DVD), the 2D capture is saved as a normal DICOM image file, and extra files of a size I would expect to be 3D data are saved next to it - but not, as far as I can tell, in a DICOM format.

Before I go to the vendor and ask, are there quirks with Orthanc related to ultrasound, 3D DICOM, or 3D ultrasound I should know about? Does anyone have a working implementation that does have 3D ultrasound data being successfully loaded and transferred?

I apologize if this is not the correct place to ask these kinds of questions, I just want to have all my answers ready when I go to the vendor - I would hate to have them blame everything on Orthanc!

Thanks!

[Sébastien Jodogne]

Hello,

The simple answer is: Orthanc is (or should be) able to receive any DICOM file from any vendor using the DICOM protocol. Provided that 4 mandatory DICOM tags are provided (PatientID, StudyInstanceUID, SeriesInstanceUID and SOPInstanceUID), Orthanc should be able to receive any DICOM file produced by any 3D Ultrasound equipment. In my hospital, I am able to transmit ultrasound DICOM images from our PACS to Orthanc.

The full, technical answer can be found in the DICOM conformance statement of Orthanc 0.8.2, which can be found at the following location (cf. the "Store SCP Conformance" section):

https://code.google.com/p/orthanc/source/browse/Resources/DicomConformanceStatement.txt?name=Orthanc-0.8.2

In your case, you should ask Samsung support how to send the 3D image captures as DICOM files, using the DICOM protocol, together with their DICOM conformance statement for the C-Store SCU. You should ask them which remote DICOM servers are supported (OsiriX? other PACS from other manufacturers?). IMHO, the problem is not on the Orthanc side.

HTH,

Sébastien-

[thatg...@gmail.com]

Thanks for the reply!

That was pretty much what I suspected - Orthanc is so simple there isn't much that I could have screwed up when configuring! I'll see if I can dig up conformance statements for the machines and get in touch with the manufacturer.