DICOM images contain useful meta-data such as pixel sizes and slice spacing.
On the other hand, accessing DICOM image files can be painfully slow, and the code is not nearly as readable as a simple imread().
This suggests a potential compromise: if you are going to be reading the same image numerous times, then convert the image once and store it. You may wish to do that storage as part of a structure into which you have written the DICOM parameters that are of interest to you.
