PHI removal (PatientName, ID, DOB, MRN)
Remove Protected Health Information from DICOM metadata.
Problem
You need to remove Protected Health Information from a DICOM file before sharing it. The file contains patient names, medical record numbers, birth dates, and accession numbers — all of which are direct identifiers that must be stripped. You want a quick, one-click de-identification that replaces known PHI fields with safe default values while preserving clinical metadata like modality, pixel data, and non-identifying study descriptors.
Steps
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Open your DICOM file — click Open files… (⌘O) and select the file.
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Switch to Anonymization mode — click the Anon tab in the mode switcher (⌘2). You’ll see the anonymization banner with profile options.
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Select the Basic profile — in the profile picker, click Basic. This activates a pre-built rule set targeting common PHI fields. The rule count displayed shows how many tags will be affected.
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Compare with other profiles — click HIPAA and +Pixel to see how the rule count changes. The HIPAA profile adds more aggressive scrubbing; +Pixel adds pixel-data cleansing. For basic PHI removal, switch back to Basic.
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Apply the anonymization — click the Apply button. All changes are staged in-memory — nothing is written to disk yet.
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Verify the results — switch to Edit mode (⌘3). Filter for each modified tag to confirm the replacements.
Result
The Basic profile replaces the direct identifiers (Patient Name, ID, and Accession Number with ANON; Birth Date with 19000101) while deliberately keeping clinically-relevant fields such as Patient Sex. Changed rows turn gold, the dirty counter shows how many tags moved, and study-level metadata stays untouched.