Remote access to research results is increasingly facilitated through the use of digital representation of research results. Most of the modern medical diagnostic equipment processes signals from patients’ bodies into digital data which can be stored, repeatedly replayed and analyzed without loss of quality. It is particularly common in radiology but it also becomes widespread in many other diagnostic techniques. Nowadays, DICOM standard is the uniform standard in digital representation of medical data. Its widespread use is said to constitute a major factor in accelerating the development of teleconsultation support systems.

Today, virtually all the devices generating medical imaging data that are available on the market are compatible with the DICOM standard. These include, among others, X-ray cameras, computer tomography, magnetic resonance imaging scanners, devices for angiography, scintigraphy, ultrasonography, electrocardiography, cameras, scanners and other transducers used to convert data from older systems into digital form. DICOM standard can be used in diagnostic methods in almost every field of medicine. Nowadays, it is mainly used in cardiology, radiology, dentistry, endoscopy, ophthalmology, orthopedics, anatomopathology, pediatrics, radiotherapy, surgery, veterinary and many others.

DICOM defines two important aspects of information acquisition from the medical equipment: structure of medical data that are stored in a file or a sequence of files and way of communicating with the device in order to transfer data. Examination file saved in the DICOM standard is a set of data, each of which is bearing an appropriate tag. The standard defines thousands of labels indicating their importance and a possible set of values allowing free transfer of data between devices and programs which are able to interpret correctly and process these files.

Imaging data is one of the most important data in DICOM file. DICOM file can store static images or video sequences of a quality that surpasses the one that is generated in graphic formats used in other fields, for instance, JPEG, MPEG. This stems from the need to ensure adequate – diagnostic – quality of medical examination. Images contained in the DICOM file are often subjected to lossless compression, namely the one that allows one to reduce the size of the recorded image while it is completely reversible and does not result in diminished quality.

Furthermore, the data contained in the DICOM file include all the information that allows one to move it freely between different devices and programs that are able to correctly interpret and process these files. The process is conducted independently of the equipment that generated them. Calibration information contained in the DICOM file is of great importance. Thanks to image calibration, it is possible, with the appropriate DICOM browser, to carry out measurements and calculations in a manner analogous to the one offered by diagnostic equipment.