Attribute Matching and Wildcards

The implementation of the Query/Retrieve SCP service on the remote node determines the quality of attribute matching. All attribute matching is performed by the remote service. In addition to case sensitivity, matching can include one or more of the following:


Single Value Matching	Matches single values.
Wildcard Matching	Use * to match zero or more characters. Use ? to match any single character. For example, to return patients with a name beginning with HA, use HA*. To return a list of patients whose names vary by one or more instances of a single value, use the ? character to indicate the wildcard value as in M?NROE.
Range Matching	Use the - character in between date or time values to return any matches within that range. For example, to match any date in the first six months of the year, use 20050101-20050630.
UID List Matching	Matches a list of UIDs separated by \ character.

The following table indicates the value representation (VR) and what wildcards are supported in each query field. A "·" in the column indicates the wildcard is supported.

Table 3-26: Wildcard Support for Query Fields

Table 3-26: Wildcard Support for Query Fields
Field	VR	*	?	-	/
Patient Name	PN	·	·
Family Name	PN	·	·
Given Name	PN	·	·
Middle Name	PN	·	·
Prefix	PN	·	·
Suffix	PN	·	·
Patient ID	LO	·	·
Study Instance UID	UI				·
Study ID	SH	·	·
Study Date	DA			·
Study Time	TM			·
Accession Number	SH	·	·
Series Instance UID	UI				·
Series Number	IS
Modality	CS
SOP Instance UID	UI				·
Instance Number	IS