10.06.2008
Together with their colleagues in the Healthcare unit, researchers from Siemens Corporate Technology are developing a completely new search technique for medical data. As reported in the latest issue of the research magazine Pictures of the Future, the image search engine Medico intelligently combines not only all available information from previous image-based examinations of a patient, but also the information from similar clinical pictures of other patients, including related radiological results. This will give physicians effective access to all the information that is relevant in a particular case.
For the first time, Medico will link medical knowledge with new methods of image processing, knowledge-based information processing, and machine learning. In the future, this will allow computers to identify not only “black or white” but also fine nuances in the available information. The first prototype test run of this intelligent database is scheduled to begin as early as the end of 2009 at the hospital of the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
Medico is expected to identify anatomical structures like bones, vessels and organs and the pathological changes they exhibit. The data is then automatically catalogued and linked to reference images and treatment reports from multiple databases. In order to close the semantic gap that has so far existed between unstructured image data and the specialist vocabulary of physicians in a defined area, the Siemens experts are initially concentrating on 3D volumetric data sets from computed tomography. The term “semantics” actually has to do with the study of word meanings, but in this context it refers to the processes that a computer program uses to understand image-content.
Medico is one of six application scenarios in the overall framework of Theseus, a research program of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The core of this program is development of the intelligent search engine, or what is called “Web 3.0.” Starting with an assemblage of unstructured data, the aim is to develop a general method of expression that provides order and hierarchy. The Theseus program is working with 30 research partners on development of a semantic platform that processes information based on its content.
