Querying a DICOM database#
Queries to a DICOM database are performed through odil find:
$ odil find \
www.dicomserver.co.uk 11112 WORKSTATION SERVER \
patient \
QueryRetrieveLevel=PATIENT PatientName PatientID
347 answers
Specific Character Set 0008,0005 CS []
Query/Retrieve Level 0008,0052 CS ['PATIENT']
Retrieve AE Title 0008,0054 AE ['SERVER']
Patient's Name 0010,0010 PN ['Abdomen^Abby^']
Patient ID 0010,0020 LO ['AA']
Specific Character Set 0008,0005 CS []
Query/Retrieve Level 0008,0052 CS ['PATIENT']
Retrieve AE Title 0008,0054 AE ['SERVER']
Patient's Name 0010,0010 PN ['Doo^Scooby']
Patient ID 0010,0020 LO ['05255']
...
The first four arguments are the TCP/IP information (respectively the host and port) and the name of the DICOM applications (respectively the calling and called AE titles). The fifth argument is the information model to use in the query (either patient or study). Following are the query elements. Each query element may be either an element keyword and a value (as QueryRetrieveLevel=PATIENT) or only the element keyword (as PatientName or PatientID). In the former case, the value will be matched against the records on the remote application and in the latter case the keyword indicates that the user wishes to retrieve the value from the server.
The QueryRetrieveLevel element must be specified and determines what objects the server will return (PATIENT, STUDY, SERIES, IMAGE).
The various attribute matching rules can be used:
$ odil find \
www.dicomserver.co.uk 11112 WORKSTATION SERVER \
patient \
QueryRetrieveLevel=PATIENT PatientName=Doo* PatientID
2 answers
Specific Character Set 0008,0005 CS []
Query/Retrieve Level 0008,0052 CS ['PATIENT']
Retrieve AE Title 0008,0054 AE ['SERVER']
Patient's Name 0010,0010 PN ['Doo^Scooby']
Patient ID 0010,0020 LO ['05255']
Specific Character Set 0008,0005 CS []
Query/Retrieve Level 0008,0052 CS ['PATIENT']
Retrieve AE Title 0008,0054 AE ['SERVER']
Patient's Name 0010,0010 PN ['Doo^Shaggy']
Patient ID 0010,0020 LO ['05256']