ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the potential and the limitations of using Content-Based Medical Image Retrieval (CBMIR) systems in clinical environments and how they can be further improved to become a powerful asset for Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD). The chapter presents the development of a CBMIR system for a real medical environment: the Higiia system. It summarizes the main concepts related to the retrieval of similar medical images. The chapter addresses the task of retrieving similar medical images based on their visual content using CBMIR systems. It explains the concepts and challenges associated with the implementation of a CBMIR system. The chapter also discusses how near duplicate images increases the effort required from the users to find useful information. It presents BridGE, an effective technique that bridges usability by better expressing similarity queries that consider the relationship among the elements in the result set to solve this problem.