Authentication and data hiding using a hybrid ROI-based watermarking scheme for DICOM images

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Digital Watermarking
• Information Security

Background:

• Medical image authentication and data hiding are critical for secure healthcare data management.
• Existing watermarking techniques often face limitations in balancing data hiding capacity, image quality, and robustness.
• Digital watermarking offers a solution for embedding auxiliary information within medical images for authentication and data concealment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel hybrid watermarking scheme for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) images.
• To achieve both secure data hiding of patient information and robust authentication of medical images.
• To preserve the diagnostic quality of the Region of Interest (ROI) in medical images.

Main Methods:

• A hybrid watermarking scheme combining reversible data hiding and robust watermarking techniques.
• Division of DICOM images into Region of Interest (ROI) and Region of Non-Interest (RONI).
• Embedding patient data into ROI using a reversible difference expansion technique.
• Embedding tamper detection and recovery data into RONI using a robust Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) based technique.

Main Results:

• Successful hiding of patient data with high visual quality, ensuring exact retrieval of the ROI.
• Demonstrated robustness against common image distortions such as salt and pepper noise and cropping.
• Effective authentication and data hiding capabilities validated through experimental results.

Conclusions:

• The proposed hybrid watermarking scheme effectively addresses the dual requirements of data hiding and authentication for DICOM images.
• The scheme ensures the integrity and confidentiality of patient data while maintaining the diagnostic quality of medical images.
• This approach offers a promising solution for secure medical image processing and management in healthcare systems.