On knowledge-based medical image understanding

Abstract

In this paper we present the initial outline of a knowledge-based system for the automatic interpretation of chest x-ray images. The processing is carried out in two levels. The operations on the image that are independent of the knowledge domain and therefore specific to the image in a syntactic level are carried out in the first level. In the second level, a semantic analysis of the image, based on the results of the first level, is performed. The knowledge of the domain is injected in the high-level process; it is described by a semantic network that permits an explicit representation of both the intrinsic anatomic properties of the organs and pathologic structures and the relational aspects. The analysis strategies represent.