SR (Structured Report)

A DICOM document that stores findings and measurements as a tree of coded items instead of pixels or free text.

A DICOM Structured Report (SR) stores findings, measurements and observations as a tree of coded content items instead of pixels or free text. Imaging systems, reporting tools and AI software use SR to pass on results that another program can read: lesion measurements, detection findings, or the radiation dose of an exam.

How an SR is organized

The report lives in the Content Sequence (0040,A730). Each content item has:

• a value type, such as TEXT, NUM, CODE, DATE, PNAME, UIDREF, IMAGE (a reference to an image) or SCOORD (coordinates on an image)
• a concept name, a code that says what the item is, for example “Long axis”
• a value, for example 23.4 with the units code mm

Items nest under CONTAINER items, and each item states its relationship to its parent, such as CONTAINS or HAS PROPERTIES. Templates in DICOM PS3.16 fix the structure for a kind of report. TID 1500 (Measurement Report) is used for image measurements, and TID 10011 (CT Radiation Dose) for CT dose reports.

Common SR SOP Classes are Basic Text SR, Enhanced SR, Comprehensive SR, Comprehensive 3D SR, and the X-Ray and Radiopharmaceutical Radiation Dose SRs (RDSR).

SR in dcmage

Open an SR file and the SR tab in the right rail shows its content tree. Each row shows the value type and concept name. dcmage shows the values of TEXT, NUM and CODE items; other value types appear without a value.

• Edit on a row with a value changes it. The change is an ordinary tag edit, so undo and the pre-export diff cover it. Numeric values are not checked when you edit them.
• + Add item adds a TEXT, NUMERIC or CODE item. + child adds one under a CONTAINER, and ✕ deletes a TEXT, NUMERIC or CODE item after you confirm.
• + New from template opens Author Structured Report. The built-in template is RECIST 1.1 Tumor Response, and you can save or load your own template as JSON. Create Report writes a new Comprehensive SR file that copies the patient and study details from the active file.

A Radiation Dose SR also gets a Dose tab that summarizes the dose values it finds, such as DLP and CTDIvol, and lists the irradiation events.

dcmage reads SR content generically. It does not check a report against a template such as TID 1500, and edits are not validated against one.