Internet access to digital medical X-rays by image features and associated text

The Web-based Medical Information Retrieval System (WebMIRS) allows Internet access to databases containing 17,000 digitized X-ray spine images and associated textual data from National Health and Nutrition examination Surveys (NHANES). WebMIRS allows SQL query of the text, and viewing of the returned text records and images using a standard browser. We are segmenting a subset of the vertebrae, using techniques from vertebral morphometry. From this, we derive and add to the database vertebral features. This image-derived data will enhance the user's data access capability by enabling the creation of combined SQL/image-content queries.