Volume of interest (VOI) feature representation and retrieval of multi-dimensional dynamic positron emission tomography images

Medical images often require domain knowledge and diagnostic features in order to measure the similarity and relevance. It is unlikely that conventional image feature representation can adequately represent the volumetric and diagnostic properties of the medical images for content-based retrieval. In this study, we present a volume of interest (VOI) feature representation and retrieval of multi-dimensional dynamic positron emission tomography (PET) images consisting of 3D spatial and 1D temporal domains. The VOIs are represented by location based on the 3D standard atlas, physiological temporal kinetics and parametric estimate, volume, and surface distribution by utilizing both the spatial and temporal domain, in addition to the textual information. The proposed representation of the features can allow for effective retrieval by domain specific image features and are applicable for content-based image retrieval (CBIR).