Computer-aided diagnosis: development of automated schemes for quantitative analysis of radiographic images.

Preliminary results obtained with computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) from various radiographic examinations are very encouraging. However, CAD is still at an early stage of its development. It will be necessary to increase further the understanding of image features of normal and abnormal patterns, to establish databases, and to devise specific approaches for particular types of pathology. Although the existing schemes are designed to be applied to digital radiographs, similar techniques can be applied in the future to cross-sectional images such as CT, MRI, and ultrasound. We believe that CAD will become clinically practical in the near future.