System and method for semantic indexing and navigation of volumetric images

A method for navigating digital medical images comprising the steps of:

• providing a digitized patient medical images of a structure of interest in a patient, said image comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a domain of points on an 3-dimensional grid;
• using a pre-trained classifier to segment said structure of interest from said image;
• creating links between said structure of interest to a corresponding structure in an anatomical atlas;
• receiving a word-based query to view said structure of interest;
• parsing said query to identify one or more keywords from noun phrases in said query;
• mapping a keyword to a corresponding structure in said anatomical atlas, wherein said anatomical atlas structure is associated with at least one of said links to the corresponding structure in said patient image;
• and
• following said at least one link to display said patient structure of interest.

A program storage device readable by a computer, tangibly embodying a non-transitory program of instructions executable by the computer to perform the method steps for navigating digital medical images, said method comprising the steps of:

• providing a digitized patient medical image of a structure of interest in said patient, said image comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a domain of points on an 3-dimensional grid;
• using a pre-trained classifier to categorize the structure of interest into one of a set of predefined categories to segment said structure of interest from said image;
• and
• creating links between said structure of interest to a corresponding structure in an anatomical atlas, wherein said links are adapted to facilitating navigation through said patient image to said structure of interest, wherein said links are created based on rules that specify the source and destination of said links.