| Title | Medical Image Databases: A Content-Based Retrieval Approach |
| Author(s) | Hemant D. Tegare; C. Carl Jaffe; James Duncan |
| Source | JAMIA, Vol. 4, No. 3, Pages 184-198 |
| Publication Date | May/June 1997 |
| Abstract | Information contained in medical images differs considerably from that residing in alphanumeric format. The difference can be attributed to four characteristics: (1) the semantics of medical knowledge extractable from images is imprecise; (2) image information contains form and spatial data, which are not expressible in conventional language; (3) a large part of image information is geometric; (4) diagnostic inferences derived from images rest on an incomplete, continuously evolving model of normality. This paper explores the differentiating characteristics of text versus images and their impact on design of a medical image database intended to allow content-based indexing and retrieval. One strategy for implementing medical image databases is presented, which employs object-oriented iconic queries, semantics by association with prototypes, and a generic schema. |