IHTSDO and the DICOM Standards Committee today announced a new global licensing agreement for SNOMED CT codes and descriptions to be used in the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard.

The renewable five-year licensing agreement between IHTSDO and DICOM continues the long-standing DICOM policy of using SNOMED terminology, previously established with the SNOMED DICOM Microglossary of 1997 and an agreement with the College of American Pathologists.

• The SNOMED CT licensing agreement covers the use of a subset of 7,314 SNOMED CT codes and descriptions, including all current SNOMED CT concepts used in the DICOM standard. Other key points from the agreement include the following:

• The agreed SNOMED CT subset will be updated after each biannual SNOMED CT international release, taking into account changes to SNOMED CT and requests from the DICOM Standards Committee to use additional concepts.

• The agreed SNOMED CT subset is free for use, both for publication in DICOM as well as by implementers and users of DICOM-compliant products and software globally, without restriction to IHTSDO member countries.

• If implementers use additional SNOMED CT codes (beyond the scope of the agreed subset), they are subject to SNOMED CT licensing arrangements that may incur a fee in IHTSDO non-member countries.

• The DICOM standard will be updated to retire and replace concepts that have been inactivated in SNOMED CT.

For more details on the agreement please visit the IHTSDO and DICOM websites.