Hello Gabriela,

You asked about a possible translation of “Snout ID” that is one of the items referenced by the MOSAIQ 2.20 DICOM Conformance Statement.

ANALYSIS

This is subject about computerized medical systems for radiotherapy. The problem is that if we want to know about “snout”, Wikipedia or the bilingual dictionaries like Collins explain about the “snout” of the animals, but not the “snout” of the machines.

By the way, the Etymology Dictionary says that “snout” is an English term that since early the 13th Century was used to describe a “trunk or projecting nose of an animal”, which it also connected with the German noun “Schnauze” that means something similar in that language.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...

Definitively, to find an explanation of the noun “snout” of the DICOM Conformance Statement, we have to research across the literature related to DICOM.

DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) is a set of standards for the digital imaging devices applied to the medicine.

The DICOM standards were developed by NEMA (National Electronics Manufactured Association), and despite this association includes manufacturers of software and hardware from different countries, all the materials of DICOM are in English. This is the case of “snout”. There is not official translations of this term to other languages.

Nonetheless, the literature in English gives enough information to know that the “snout” is a very important element of the theraphy machines. It is located in the external extreme of the treatment head of the ion therapy machines and includes apertures and compensadors to facilitate the radiation of the tumors.

When we look pictures of ion therapy machines, it is easy to identify the “snout”. It is look like a mix between a “snout” of an animal or a “snout” of a gun.

In the case of the animals, we translate “snout” to Spanish with the term “hocico” and in the case of the gun, we translate like “boca”.

And like the “guns” and “laser tools”, the “snout” of the therapy machines has a series of information associated: ID, position, sequences...

Your question is about the translation of Snout ID”. The term “ID” is an acronym of “identifier” (in Spanish: “identificador”).

If we don’t translate “snout”, we can say: “Snout ID” is “el identificador del snout”.

If we translate “snout”, we can say: “Snout ID” is “el identificador de la boca (snout) de la cabeza de tratamiento de la máquina de terapia ion (o de la máquina de terapia de ionización)”.

According to the information available, the identifier of the snout (Snout ID) is important because like all the elements and parts of the electronic systems, a snout matches in one machine, but it doesn’t match in other machine. Each snout has an identifier.

MY PROPOSAL

1) “el identificador de la boca (snout) de la cabeza de tratamiento de una máquina de radioterapia.”

2) “el identificador del “snout” de una máquina de radioterapia” (in the case the we prefer to use “snout” without translation.)

I hope this analysis helps you in your work.

Regards

Domingo

NOTE: Sources used in this analysis.
1) DICOM documents
URL: http://medical.nema.org/Dicom/
2) Website about patents of proton beam theraphy
URL: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20110127443
3) Elekta website about DICOM
URL: http://www.elekta.com/dms/elekta/elekta-assets/Elekta-Softwa...
4) Documents of Siemens about DICOM
URL: http://www.medical.siemens.com/siemens/en_GLOBAL/rg_marcom_F...