Storage of Fractional Flow Reserve Hemodynamic Waveforms Using Semantic Extension of the DICOM Standard

Visual assessment of coronary stenoses by coronary angiography remains widely used but correlates poorly with ischemia, particularly for moderate lesions. Fractional flow reserve (FFR) is a cardiac catheterization procedure that aims to provide objective measures of coronary lesion hemodynamic significance and involves the acquisition of phasic pressure and electrocardiographic waveforms. The dataset from these procedures currently remains in proprietary systems with restricted data access, inability for data exchange, and often inadequate archiving. Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) includes a waveform information object definition. We describe the method of encapsulating FFR procedural information into a DICOM waveform file. We define private data elements to capture modality-specific data that is not represented by standard DICOM data elements. We propose the adoption of this semantic extension of the DICOM waveform information object for exchange and archiving of data from studies of pressure-derived indices of coronary stenoses.