Content-based medical Image Retrieval

The need for systems that can store, represent, and provide efficient retrieval facilities of images of particular interest is becoming very high. Content-based image retrieval consists of retrieving the most visually similar images to a given query image from a database of images. CBIR for medical image databases does not aim to replace the physician by predicting the disease of a particular case but to assist him/her in diagnosis. The visual characteristics of a disease carry diagnostic information and oftentimes visually similar images correspond to the same disease category. By consulting the output of a CBIR system, the physician can gain more confidence in his/her decision. In this direction we have developed a content-based M-image retrieval system which allows browsing and searching in large image collections based on visual features that are automatically extracted from the images, in evidence-based medicine, there is a need for finding similar medical cases, when only one or several image(s) are available for diagnostics.