FAQ: I'm having trouble opening the images I received from the HIRO using Matlab. Is there something wrong with the image files?

The HIRO's current anonymization process inserts specific DICOM tags that indicate the type of anonymization that was performed. These tags are valid and defined within the DICOM specification; unfortunately, some older versions of Matlab do not appear to support them properly. The tags in question are below:

Tag NumberDescription
(0012,0062)Patient Identity Removed
(0012,0063)DeIdentification Method

Versions of Matlab prior to 2007 may not open DICOM-formatted images with these tags present. Matlab 2008b and later will read the images properly. This issue may be isolated to just the dicominfo function (you may still be able to use dicomread to import the pixel information without the header information). If you are using Matlab 2007 or earlier and are unable to update to a newer version of Matlab, it is possible to add these tags to Matlab's DICOM Dictionary file. This should enable you to read the images properly. Information on how to update Matlab's DICOM Dictionary can be found in the Matlab documentation.

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