Preservation of patient confidentiality in the publication of radiology images.

We have examined the radiological images used for illustration of research and case reports in this journal for the last twelve months. We have found that a number of illustrations patient’s images contained multiple patient identifiers including gender, age, date of birth and medical record number, which amount to an inadvertent breach of patient confidentiality. These are generally seen when the images are photographs of printed film rather than electronic image conversions. In the last decade, digital acquisition, storage and transmission of medical images have become widespread. Virtually all radiology equipment in Ireland now acquire images digitally, although some radiology departments do not have PACS and must print film for image analysis and storage. In some cases the authors photographed the printed film of the patient’s CT. In our opinion this should be unacceptable as it leads to poorer image quality and also increases the risk of patient identifiers being left on the images.