This page describes the representational state transfer application programming interface (REST API) implementations that can be used to access TCIA data and resources. The APIs complement the existing web interfaces and enable developers to build direct access to TCIA data into their applications using only the API documentation provided. The application developer must ensure that they and the users of their applications comply with the TCIA Programmatic Interface REST API Guides. If you are interested in using the APIs and have any questions, please contact the TCIA Help Desk except where otherwise noted.

• Collection Manager (Wordpress) REST API: TCIA has developed custom extensions to Wordpress, which is the software used to manage all of the metadata for our datasets (both Collections and Analysis results).  The REST API for these extensions will allow you to identify which datasets meet your search criteria, as opposed to the NBIA APIs which let you identify specific patients or scans that match your search criteria.  
• NBIA REST APIs: Provided as part of the NBIA software, these APIs provide access to the search and download functions used in the TCIA radiology portal, and allow access to both public and limited access DICOM collections.
  

  New NBIA REST API return values were added in recent releases. These changes are detailed here.

  
  
  • The NBIA Search REST APIs allow you to perform basic queries and download data for image analysis on public collections.
  • The NBIA Search with Authentication REST APIs allow you to perform basic queries on and download data for image analysis from public and restricted collections.
  • The NBIA Advanced REST APIs also allow access to public and restricted collections, but are geared towards developers seeking to integrate searching and downloading TCIA data into their own web and desktop applications. 
• DataCite REST API: Each Collection TCIA publishes is issued a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) through DataCite.  This API can be used to programmatically access Collection metadata such as their DOIs, titles and abstracts.  Please note that this API was not developed by TCIA. See https://support.datacite.org/ for any technical questions.  The TCIA Helpdesk may be able to assist if your inquiry is related to the content of the data itself.

TCIA_Utils

The tcia_utils package contains functions to simplify common tasks one might perform when interacting with The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) via Python.  Issues with this package should be submitted at https://github.com/kirbyju/tcia_utils/issues.  Example notebooks demonstrating tcia_utils functionality can be found at https://github.com/kirbyju/TCIA_Notebooks. 

Installation can be achieved with this Pip command:

pip install tcia_utils

To import functions related to the Collection Manager (Wordpress) for accessing high-level metadata about our datasets:

from tcia_utils import wordpress

 To import functions related to NBIA for accessing our DICOM radiology data:

from tcia_utils import nbia

To import functions related to pathDB for accessing our digitized pathology data:

from tcia_utils import pathdb

To import functions related to Datacite for querying Collection metadata such as their DOIs, titles and abstracts:

from tcia_utils import datacite

TCIA Data Usage Policy