Integration of haemodynamic and electrocardiographic waveform data with DICOM images.

Abstract

The cardiac catheterization procedure involves acquisition of haemodynamic and electrocardiographic waveforms, as well as X-ray angiographic images. The DICOM standards is being extended to address robust interchange of this waveform data together with the image data, so as to present an integrated data set for the procedure. The proposed waveform information object definition is one of the new generation of DICOM extensions, and uses controlled vocabularies and coded entry sequences to represent clinically significant aspects of the data acquisition. This enables a generic waveform object to be specialized for disparate uses, e.g., haemodynamics, electrocardiograms, phonocardiograms, and electrophysiological data.