DICOM Viewer apps on mobile to open your Medical images

DICOM stands for “Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine”. It is the standard for medical imaging all over the world. This format is also used to transmit, store, retrieve, process and display medical images information.
Radiologists and doctors must be able to view and manage medical imaging on mobile devices and tablets. To view a DICOM file on a smartphone, you can download a DICOM viewer app. This is a perfect solution to review studies on the go or if one of your colleagues asks you for an opinion while you are on vacation.

There are many awesome free online web-based DICOM viewers, but this is not the case for mobile devices (Android or iOS). For many of them you have to pay: they are shown as free on the stores but require a subscription to access the tool.

We have chosen to select the best applications whether they are paid or free. None of them are CE- or FDA-certified and they SHOULD NOT be used for primary diagnosis. Here is our selection of mobile apps:

Mobile app for both Android and iOS

IMAIOS Dicom viewer (IDV)

• What it does: IDV is a free mobile DICOM viewer. The interface is very user friendly. To download your cases, you just need to import files from your phone or from URL seamlessly. It offers many features such as scrolling, image manipulation, measurement, window level and cross-references. 
• What makes it different: it offers quick and intuitive tools that are available on all platforms (Android, iOS and web). You can either display medical images using the DICOM format from multiple sources such as a local disk or a load from a URL. It can be used offline. To ensure storage safety and security of personal health information of the patients, data loaded isn't uploaded on the network (excluding use of sharing features).

⚠ You will not be able to create a patient case

Particularly suitable for: 

• Medical students, doctors and radiologists
• Researchers

Mobile app for Android only

DroidRender

• What it does: DroidRender is a free Android 3D DICOM viewer app. It offers many tools and is oriented towards "3D reconstruction" of medical images. It can display a 3D view reconstructed from a series of images as well as other orientations generated by the application at the same time on the screen.
• What makes it different: tissue segmentation and display is available. A lot of features allow you to analyze every aspect of medical imaging data present in a DICOM file
  (e.g. 3D volume rendering).

⚠ Quite complex to handle for basic use

Particularly suitable for: 

• Advanced image processing

Symmetry DICOM

• What it does: this app is free. Using this app, you can access and view DICOM files stored on your device or cloud storage service.
• What makes it different: it is based on the Simulacrum library (open source suite for volume and image space interaction).

⚠ This application has not been updated since 2016

Particularly suitable for: 

• Medical students, doctors and radiologists

Simple DICOM viewer (Dicom File Viewer)

• What it does: this is a very simple DICOM viewer, which can be used for testing. It can open and view dcm files stored on your smartphone. It comes with several features: pan, zoom, windowing, inversion.
• What makes it different: its ease of use

⚠ It's still a prototype and lacks functionalities

Particularly suitable for: 

• Testing

Mobile app for iOS only (iPhone and iPad)

We did not find any other iOS applications that are free. However, reference medical image viewers for iOS such as Horos and Osirix are efficient and comprehensive.

Horos mobile

• What it does: Horos Mobile displays DICOM format images from all modalities including ultrasound, CT scanner, MRI, PET, etc. This app includes easy-to-use processing tools including zoom, pan, WW/WL, ROI measurement.
• What makes it different: it can be used in conjunction with Horos desktop (including JPEG/JPEG2000 etc). It supports Patient Folders (automatically created).

⚠ Charged $14.99 per year
⚠ Online sharing is optional

Particularly suitable for: 

• Medical students, doctors and radiologists
• Researchers

Osirix HD

• What it does: it is a DICOM software for iOS. It includes tools such as zoom, pan, cine and contrast adjustment of images through the multipoint touch screen interface.
• What makes it different: it is designed to work with any DICOM-compliant software, such as PACS, medical workstations, and acquisition modalities.

⚠ Charged $9.99 per month ($119.88 a year)
⚠ A lot of features are only available on iPad (list of series, second viewer, PET-CT blending)

Particularly suitable for: 

• Doctors and radiologists  

*Android only. Soon available on iOS

We hope that you found valuable information here that will facilitate your everyday work, especially when you are on the go.