ORMIR-MIDS: an open standard for curating and sharing musculoskeletal imaging data.

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Data Science
• Musculoskeletal Research

Background:

• Quantitative imaging is crucial for musculoskeletal (MSK) disorder research and clinical applications.
• Varied analysis methods and data formats hinder result reproducibility across institutions.
• Standardized data organization is needed for consistent image processing pipelines.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce the ORMIR-MIDS data format, extending existing BIDS and MIDS standards for MSK imaging.
• Provide a specification and software tools for organizing and converting MSK imaging data.
• Facilitate harmonization of MSK imaging data and enable reproducible research.

Main Methods:

• Developed ORMIR-MIDS based on BIDS and MIDS, tailored for MSK applications.
• Created software tools for data conversion into a standardized format with organized structure.
• Generated metadata files including processing information, patient data, and image header tags.

Main Results:

• The ORMIR-MIDS format and tools support various MSK imaging modalities.
• Standardized data organization and metadata facilitate data conversion and back-conversion.
• Provided test data demonstrates the functionality of the ORMIR-MIDS system.

Conclusions:

• ORMIR-MIDS offers an open specification and tools for multimodal MSK imaging data.
• Adherence to ORMIR-MIDS promotes data harmonization across vendors and institutions.
• The standard supports the development of reproducible processing pipelines and data repositories for MSK research.