CODEWITHSUNDEEP
artificial-intelligencedicommedical
peterboston
peterboston

Reputation: 927

CT CAD is based on DICOM image data or raw data?

I am just wondering the data used in the CT CAD (computer aided diagnosis) is DICOM image data (reconstructed data) or the raw data (not reconstructed data)?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 354

Answers (1)

Amit Joshi
Amit Joshi

Reputation: 16409

You are asking about CT, but my experience is with MG. So this may not be valid for your case as is.

Scenario 1] My personal experience
Few years back, I was working with CAD module for MG. Our workflow was as as below:

  • Acquire an image (RAW data) from MG panel detector.
  • Pass this RAW data to CAD module with the information how the RAW image is constructed. This CAD module was third party; I was not involved in development of it.
  • CAD module returns suspected locations for cancer/calcification. RAW data is unchanged.
  • Construct DICOM dataset (FOR PRESENTATION) for MG modality with RAW data inserted in Pixel Data tag. Here you set Windowing and other. Add the necessary tags to mention cancer/calcification details received by CAD module.

This DICOM image can be used by any DICOM enabled application which can read tags related to CAD and present them on GUI (generally '*'/'^') for radiologist review.

Scenario 2] Third party product I worked with
I worked with a third party product for MG CAD module. My role was very limited. I just need to receive (through CStore) images from that product. So I am not aware about internals of it. Following was the workflow:

  • Vendor_1 (MG modality equipment) acquires the image and converts it to MG DICOM dataset FOR PROCESSING format.
  • It sends (DICOM CStore) those instances to Vendor_2 CAD module.
  • Vendor_2 CAD module does the analysis and constructs MG FOR PRESENTATION dataset with CAD data embedded in DICOM tags.
  • It then sends (DICOM CStore) these instances to my application (actually any DICOM enabled application).

Conclusion:

I am not good in analyzing image data; RAW or not. But, from above two examples, it is clear that CAD is done on RAW data. CAD module must be aware how the RAW data is constructed. Even though you construct DICOM dataset (FOR PROCESSING) with RAW data, the PixelData is still very close to RAW data. CAD can still work with that.

Upvotes: 1

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