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- TCIA will help your technical point of contact (PACS administrator or designated IT technician, henceforth referred to as "submitter") install TCIA's software on a standard desktop computer. The software runs on regular Windows/Mac/Linux desktop computers and requires Java to also be installed. It does not require any specialized hardware (e.g. servers are not necessary).
- TCIA will help the submitter create mapping tables (which do not leave the submitting site) which our software will use to assign anonymous patient IDs and to offset study dates.
- TCIA will walk the submitter through software testing using a small sample set of their study data (e.g. 1-2 patients).
- TCIA will help the submitter export the full set of imaging studies from their local PACS (or wherever the data resides) into the TCIA software for processing.
- Note: Please do not utilize your PACS system de-identification or other de-identification software as this usually deletes critical information researchers will need to make use of the data.
- TCIA will help the submitter use the software used to de-identify and transmit images to TCIA according to DICOM standards (Attribute Confidentiality Profile – DICOM PS 3.15: Appendix E) before it leaves your institution.
- TCIA quality control and curation staff will work with you to ensure the data are fully de- identified and received. Additional reviews are performed, and any remaining PHI are deleted if found.
- TCIA will publish the final data set with a descriptive page and announce its addition via our mailing list and social media channels.
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- Clinical Trials Processor (CTP)
- CTP is a stand-alone image processing application for DICOM (radiology) data. Our curation teams provide this tool to submitters in order to perform the initial de-identification of DICOM images before they are transferred to TCIA.
- CTP Wizard
- CTP Wizard is a custom extension of CTP developed by TCIA. It provides an interactive graphical user interface which can be used to more easily walk submitters through the process of importing, de-identifying, and exporting their DICOM data.
- POSDA
- POSDA (Perl Open Source Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine [DICOM] Archive) Tools is an application for the archival and curation of DICOM datasets. After receiving the data from submitters our curation teams use POSDA to perform additional quality checks and ensure all data was completely de-identified. It allows users to import DICOM data while tracking date and time received. Users can also prioritize multiple data submission streams based on assigned priority, identify and resolve duplicate unique identifiers (UIDs) submitted with different image or metadata, and check and edit data for DICOM conformance, consistency, and referential integrity.
De-identification Details
Following industry best-practices, TCIA uses a standards-based approach to de-identification of DICOM images to insure that images are free of protected health information (PHI). The TCIA de-identification process ensures that the HIPAA de-identification standard is met by following the Safe Harbor Method as defined in section 164.514(b)(2) of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The standard for de-identification of DICOM objects is defined by Attribute Confidentiality Profile – DICOM PS 3.15: Appendix E. At the submitting site, a DICOM PS 3.15 compliant script removes or modifies DICOM tags deemed to be unsafe (See table 1 for a complete listing). TCIA incorporates the “Basic Application Confidentiality Profile” which is amended by inclusion of the following profile options: Clean Pixel Data Option, Clean Descriptors Option, Retain Longitudinal With Modified Dates Option, Retain Patient Characteristics Option, Retain Device Identity Option, and Retain Safe Private Option. The de-identification rules applied to each object are recorded by TCIA in the DICOM sequence Method Code Sequence [0012,0063] by entering the Code Value, Coding Scheme Designator, and Code Meaning for each profile and option that were applied to the DICOM object during de-identification. The DICOM standard for de-identification of objects defines a minimum set of elements to de-identify to be in compliance with the standard. It is up to the user doing the de-identification to insure that PHI is removed or cleaned according to the laws and practices in place at the time de-identification occurs.
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