Integrity preservation and privacy protection for medical images with histogram-based reversible data hiding

For medical treatments, the integrity of the medical images, the authenticity of corresponding medical records, and the privacy of the patients are crucial requirements for the diagnosis of patient's disease. Therefore, how to retain the validity between images and medical records is an important topic for researches and real applications. In this paper, we apply the concept and implementation in digital rights management (DRM) systems, and propose a functional scheme for the above-mentioned goals. We employ the reversible data hiding scheme, a newly developed branch in DRM researches, for combating the goals. With the term of reversibility, it means that data, including patients' private information and the diagnosis data, can be hidden into the medical image by some means. Later on, the medical image containing data might be retrieved while necessary, and both the original image and the hidden data can be perfectly recovered. Data can be authenticated for enhanced privacy protection. Simulation results present the applicability of such an implementation.