Search engine for remote database-aided interpretation of digitized mammograms

We describe a query-by-content search engine that enables a radiologist to search a large database of diagnostically- proven (`benign' or `malignant') mammographic region of interest (ROIs). The database search is facilitated by a relational map which is a 2D display of all the ROIs in the database. Labeled points on the map represent ROIs in the database. The map is constructed from the output of a neural network that has been trained to cluster the ROIs in the database using a measure of perceptual similarity.