Using MeSH to expand queries in medical image retrieval

Abstract

The presence of huge collections of medical images in scientific repositories and hospital databases has given rise to increasing interest in access to this information. This paper addresses the issue, focusing on image retrieval based on textual information related to the image. The initial hypothesis is that query expansion could improve the effectiveness of image retrieval systems. In this proposal, several information elements contained in MeSH ontology were used. The ImageCLEF 2009 and 2010 document collections were used for the experiment. Results showed a slight increase in MAP and a more significant difference when the evaluation was performed using the F-measure in 2009 collection. The final conclusion is that query expansion is not sufficient to achieve a substantial improvement in the efficacy of this type of information retrieval systems. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.