Using DQR: Exporting Data to PACS

In addition to pulling DICOM data from a PACS into XNAT, you may wish to push data from XNAT into a PACS. You might want to push the data you pulled from one PACS to another PACS, push data back to a PACS after making changes to it, or push data that came into XNAT from a non-PACS source.

This feature is not supported by DICOMweb PACS connections

To export DICOM from XNAT to a PACS, you simply go to the session page of the session you wish to send and click "Send to PACS" from the Actions box on that page.

You will then see a view of the scans within that session, with a selector in the left sidebar to select a destination PACS. You can select any PACS system that has been designated as "Storable" in the DQR plugin settings. By default, no scans will be selected.

When exporting a scan series to PACS, the PACS will look to merge scans into any study that matches the Study Instance UID (0020,000D) of the image session in XNAT. Any scan series in your XNAT that matches an existing scan series when comparing Series Instance UID (0020,000E) will overwrite existing data on the PACS. This includes the remapped values for Patient Name, Patient ID, Study ID, and Accession Number, as well as any other changes to the DICOM that may have been made via the anonymization process.

After you have selected the PACS you want to send to and the scans you want to send, click "Send Selected Series to PACS" to start the export. If the export is successful, you will see the following dialog:

Limitations of the DQR Export Process

In XNAT, users can store a wide variety of resources on a scan for any given image session. This includes secondary captures, NIFTI, BIDS, or any number of other resource types. However, DQR Plugin has been programmed to be conservative about what data it allows to be exported to a PACS system.

Only DICOM-formatted resources can be exported.

This can include certain file attachments, if they have been DICOM-encoded. For example, BENICE is a pipeline that analyzes resting state networks and creates additional DICOM scans to store its outputs, including a DICOM-formatted PDF attachment. This can be exported to a remote PACS system.

No data can be sent from XNAT via DICOMweb

Depending on the type of connection XNAT is using to communicate with your PACS, the Export feature may not be supported at all. See DQR Admin: Connecting XNAT with a PACS for DQR Usage