DICOM CD-R, your guarantee to interchangeability?

A feasibility study is described on inter-departmental exchange of CD-Rs with data formatted according to the DICOM 3.0 standard. The objective is the assessment of the DICOM v3.0 data-sets on CD-R according to the DICOM basic cardiac Profile and the review capabilities of DICOM conformant cardiac review stations. Eleven CD-Rs were assessed: six were routinely recorded at departments using the equipment from four different manufacturers, five CD-Rs were DEMO-disks issued first half 1997. Seven DICOM conformant review stations, currently in use at the Dutch cardiology departments, are tested in this study. The exchange of DICOM Cardiac cine's stored on CD-Rs appeared not to be without problems. The discussion refers to DICOM and non-DICOM properties that could play a role. A proposal for a minimal dataset for interchange is made based on Dutch daily practice.