If a Key Attribute in the Identifier of a C-FIND request needs to be matched against an Attribute structured as a Sequence of Items (VR of SQ), the Key Attribute shall be structured as a Sequence of Items with a single Item. This Item may contain zero or more Item Key Attributes. Each Item Key Attribute matching shall be performed on an Item by Item basis. The types of matching defined in Section C.2.2.2 shall be used: Single Value Matching, List of UID Matching, Universal Matching, Wild Card Matching, Range Matching and Sequence Matching (recursive Sequence matching).

If all the Item Key Attributes match, for at least one of the Items of the Attribute against which the match is performed, a successful match is generated. A sequence of matching Items containing only the requested Attributes is returned in the corresponding C-FIND responses.

If the Key Attribute in the Identifier of a C-FIND request contains no Key Item Attribute (zero-length Item Tag), then all entities shall match this Attribute. This provides a Universal Matching like mechanism to request that the selected Key Attribute Value (the entire Sequence of Items) be returned in corresponding C-FIND responses.