Ontologies For The Semantic-Based Medical Image Indexing: An Overview

Image retrieval by content is characterized by the ability of a system to retrieve relevant images based on their visual or their semantic contents. In this paper, we survey key contributions in the medical imaging area. We centre our attention on one related sub-fields: the semantic indexing process. We describe limitations of visual approaches and provide taxonomy for semantic ones with an emphasis on the ontology-based indexing. Thorough studies on recent medical applications are done to examine a number of developed ontologies. And in retrospect of what has been achieved so far, we finally conjecture medical challenges on what the future may hold out about ontology guided image indexing researches.