About Us

About The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA)

What is TCIA?

A large archive of medical images of cancer accessible for public download. Registering is free. All images are stored in DICOM file format. The images are organized as "Collections", typically patients related by a common disease (e.g. lung cancer), image modality (MRI, CT, etc) or research focus.

What value would it be to me?

A huge amount of clinical and research images are collected each year. TCIA organizes and catalogs the images so that they may be used by the research community for a variety of purposes.

Cancer researchers can use this data to test new hypotheses and develop new analysis techniques to advance our scientific understanding of cancer.
Engineers and developers can build new analysis tools and techniques using this data as test material for developing and validating algorithms.
Professors can use it as a teaching tool for introducing students to medical imaging technology and cancer phenotypes.
The general public can see how cancer appears in diagnostic images and learn about the instruments doctor uses to diagnose cancer and measure the success of treatment.

Is it easy to use?

Yes. There is a general user's guide available on our wiki, as well as context-sensitive help available on each page. Our support desk is also available to help with everything from submitting and searching for images to downloading data.

Accessing the images

TCIA is designed to make searching, reviewing and downloading DICOM data for research quick and easy. Each collection is linked to its own Wiki page that contains information about the source(s), metadata available, and envisioned research purposes of the data.

Searching for images – The simple search page allows for filtering by: collection names, date of image availability, image modality, and encoded patient ID. There is an advanced search which can filter on modality manufacturer, software version, and several additional DICOM elements. For complex queries there is a dynamic search option allowing one to query over 90 elements of the DICOM files. Searches can be saved for future reference.
Reviewing the results – There are multiple ways to review the data prior to download. This includes JPEG thumbnail previews, an interactive Cine tool which allows easily scanning through the images, and a link to view the full DICOM header to see the elements contained within the series.
Downloading the data – Images are placed in your download basket for saving to your local computer. The archive utilizes a Java Web Start applet to quickly download the images to the desired location.
Referencing the data - A 'Shared List" feature allows referencing to fixed sets of images from emails and publications.

Submitting Data

TCIA addresses the technical and policy challenges faced by sites wanting to make image data available for public research.

DICOM Supplement 142 compliance – All data submitted to the archive is processed with the RSNA's Clinical Trials Processor software using de-identification scripts which leverage Supplement 142, the official DICOM standard for clinical trials image de-identification.
Curation and Quality Control – A team of subject matter experts performs curation and quality control against every image submitted to the archive. This review ensures that no protected health information ever makes it into the archive while verifying that meta data which is critical to research analysis is not mistakenly removed.
Submission support – A submission helpdesk is available to assist submitters every step of the way. This includes providing tools for analyzing data sets as well as customizing and pre-configuring the submission software specifically for that data.

Learn more about what to expect as an image provider.

Is all data in TCIA accessible to every user?

Most of the data sets in TCIA are accessible to all users. However, TCIA provides the security support to limit access to data sets where appropriate. For example, if a data set needs to be shared on TCIA among collaborators for preliminary analysis, TCIA will support this. At the time of submission, the data provider can provide the TCIA team with a list of collaborators who will have exclusive access. Having the data mounted on TCIA can facilitate making the data public at a later date as well if desired.

Will this archive help someone currently dealing with cancer?

Not directly, but we hope by promoting new discovery the scientists, engineers and physicians who use this data will find new ways to fight this disease.

What's the difference between TCIA and the National Biomedical Imaging Archive (NBIA)?

TCIA uses NBIA technology as its platform. The Cancer Imaging Archive is a project funded by the Cancer Imaging Program of the National Cancer Institute.

The Cancer Imaging Program (CIP) was the initial sponsor of the Imaging Workspace of the NCI caBIG effort, and continues to provide leadership in the development of critical infrastructure in support of cancer imaging research. One of the early priorities of the workspace was to develop a mechanism for distribution and hosting of DICOM images to be shared amongst researchers, a need driven by several CIP-funded programs which required image sharing among investigators. As a result the National Biomedical Imaging Archive (NBIA) was created to meet this need. An instance of NBIA was deployed and continues to be hosted at NCI's Center for Bioinformatics and Information Technology (CBIIT).

Because this was the first instantiation of NBIA most users familiar with the site came to think of it as "the only" NBIA. However, NBIA is a federated caGRID compatible technology and there are now a number of deployed instances of NBIA at other host sites, of which TCIA is one. In addition to simply hosting the software, TCIA also provides a number of support services to extend the utility of NBIA. This includes a staff dedicated to curation and quality control for image submissions, a helpdesk to address end-user questions, and a Wiki site for hosting metadata related to the images.