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Abstract
In the evaluation of regional left ventricular function, relevant cardiac disorders manifest themselves not only in static features, such as shape descriptors and motion excursion in end-diastolic and end-systolic frames, but also in their temporal evolution. In common diagnostic practice, such dynamic patterns are analysed by direct inspection of frame sequences through the use of a moviola. This permits only a subjective and poorly defined evaluation of functionalparameters, and definitely prevents a systematic and reproducible analysis of large sets of reports. Retrieval by contents techniques may overcome this limitation by permitting the automatic comparison of the reports in a database against queries expressing descriptive properties related to significant pathological conditions. A system is presented which is aimed at investigating the potential of this approach by supporting retrieval by contents from a database of cineangiographic or echocardiographic images. The system relies on a symbolic description of both geometrical and temporal properties of left ventricular contours. This is derived automatically by an image processing and interpretation module and associated with the report at its storage time. In the retrieval stage, queries are expressed by means of an iconic visual language which describes searched content properties over a computer screen. The system automatically interprets iconic statements and compares themagainst concrete descriptions in the database. This enables medical users to interact with the system to search for motion and shape abnormalities on a regional basis, in single or homogeneous groups of reports, so as to enable both prospective and retrospective diagnosis.