# Patient Identifiers in Scans

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/patient-identifiers-in-scans/14716>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [November 20, 2020, 7:21pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/patient-identifiers-in-scans/14716 "2020-11-20T19:21:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![atbeksac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@atbeksac](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/atbeksac)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 7:21pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/patient-identifiers-in-scans/14716/1 "2020-11-20T19:21:46Z")

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Hello,

I want to use slicer to extract radiomic data from CT scans. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get deidentified images. My question is whether it is safe to use images with patient identifiers. I want to do my research the right way and I don’t want to jeopardize any identified patient data.

Thanks

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**Author:** ![manjula](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/manjula/32/80981_2.png) [@manjula](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/manjula)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 9:01pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/patient-identifiers-in-scans/14716/2 "2020-11-20T21:01:11Z")

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Hi,

I think for most practical purposes you can save the data in nrrd format which will remove the patient information from the standard tags.

But I think I have people really going the extra mile and describing things like changing image origins and axes like that. And i understand it to be a very complex topic.

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**Author:** ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 10:05pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/patient-identifiers-in-scans/14716/3 "2020-11-20T22:05:09Z")

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Most institutions will have guidelines about what is considered safe practices for using identified data for research. Saving to nrrd without using real names or ids as filenames is a common practice for de-identifying and will work fine for radiomics research. There are probably still institutional rules you will need to follow to safeguard the data even if it’s been de-identified in this way.