How to open a DICOM scan CD or USB on your phone

A phone cannot read a physical CD, so the disc has to go through a computer first. Copy the whole contents of the CD to a USB stick or straight to the phone, then open that folder in an app that understands DICOM. The images on the disc are ordinary files, they just need the right viewer.

Why the CD does not work on a phone

Phones have no disc drive. Even with an external drive, most phones will not run the program that many scan CDs start by themselves. That program is usually a Windows viewer, and it only works on a Windows computer.

The good news is that the viewer is separate from the images. The images and the index that organises them are plain files on the disc, and they can be copied like any other files.

Step 1: copy the whole disc to a computer

Put the CD in a computer with a disc drive and open it in the file explorer. Select everything on the disc and copy it into a new folder on the computer. Copy all of it, not just a few files.

A typical disc contains:

• an index file, usually called DICOMDIR
• one or more folders with the image files inside, sometimes with nested subfolders
• often a Windows viewer program and a few support files

Image files often have no extension at all, and the names can look like IM0001 or a string of numbers. That is normal. See DICOMDIR explained for how the pieces fit together.

If the computer cannot read the disc, try another drive first. Scratched discs sometimes copy with errors, so check that the copy finished without warnings.

Step 2: move the folder to the phone

There are three common ways.

1. USB stick. Copy the folder from the computer to a USB stick. Many Android phones can read a stick through a USB-C or micro-USB adapter, often called an OTG adapter. A stick in a common format such as FAT32 or exFAT is usually readable.
2. Cable. Connect the phone to the computer with a USB cable, choose file transfer on the phone, and drag the folder into the phone’s storage, for example into Downloads.
3. Cloud or local network. Possible, but a scan can be hundreds of files and hundreds of megabytes. A cable or a stick is usually faster and more reliable.

Keep the folder structure exactly as it was on the disc. Do not rename folders or move image files out of their subfolders.

Compressing the folder into a single zip can make a transfer easier, but then it must be unzipped on the phone before it can be opened.

Step 3: open the folder in a DICOM viewer

Install a DICOM viewer on the phone and use its option to open a folder, then pick the folder you copied. A good viewer will walk through the subfolders itself and find the images, even if the files have no extension. You should not need to open files one by one.

Once the folder is loaded you will normally see the scan split into studies and series, such as separate CT or MRI sequences. For the difference, see CT vs MRI, study and series.

Radix DICOM is one Android viewer that opens whole patient-CD folders this way, works offline and does not upload images.

If nothing shows up

• The copy is incomplete. Check that the number of files and the folder size on the phone match the computer. A missing subfolder means missing images.
• You picked a single file or the wrong folder. Choose the top-level folder that contains the DICOMDIR file or the image folders.
• The disc holds something other than DICOM. Some discs contain only a report or only a few exported pictures such as JPEG files. Those open in any gallery app.
• A few images are skipped. Some files can be damaged or use a format a viewer does not support. See why a DICOM file will not open.

A note on use

A phone viewer is a convenient way to look at your own images and to show them to someone else. It is not a medical device and not a tool for diagnosis. What a scan means for your health is a question for your doctor, who will use the official report and the tools the hospital provides.