Resource of the Week: Medical Image Database

Sometimes, our readers let us know about Very Cool resources that we likely would have not have stumbled across on our own. I know it’s been awhile since we’ve featured anything from the medical realm. This week, as a special feature, we’ll step graciously aside and allow one of the key brains behind this database describe it for you.
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MedPixâ„¢ Medical Image Database
By James G. Smirniotopoulos, M.D.
Professor of Radiology, Neurology, and Biomedical Informatics
Chair, Radiology and Radiological Sciences
Uniformed Services University
Bethesda, MD

The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences – our Federal Health University, located in Bethesda, Maryland – hosts an online Medical Image Database called MedPix. The archive contains peer-reviewed and pathologically proven cases. MedPix also provides an Atlas function to display images with comparable meta-data.

MedPix, is a fully interactive product for storing, retrieving, and searching against a variety of medically relevant parameters. The interfaces are dynamic and the database is relational, providing a robust information tool that is now available to medical professionals anywhere in the world via the Internet. Additionally, interactive diagnostic and teaching services may also be provided, allowing multiple physicians to access and discuss multimedia files, and allowing physicians a remote learning or expert platform by which interactive multimedia files may be created and the learning process facilitated via an automated program. The patent for MedPix was issued in July 2006.

The most prominent features of the MedPix invention include:
+ Remote user input of case files
+ A verification process limiting access to new case files until approved by peer reviewers
+ A peer review process whereby users with comment privileges can append comment data to a case file
+ Enhanced case files, comprising simple and complex relationships, including a linking of related case files by specified components (e.g., the same patient file linked to multiple topics and image files)
+ interactive training systems for selectively displaying case file information, further linked to a training table including expert training file information interactively responsive to user-selected inputs, and also linked to a training table for storing student results
+ A consultative program system for selectively presenting case file information for contemporaneous or real-time review of multimedia medical case files
+ Privacy and access limitation features

MedPix also includes a new diagnostic match service. Search parameters retrieve a series of images from the database, and these may be compared to an unknown image being evaluated remotely.

MedPix now incorporates tools and systems for generation of online testing with automatic scoring, report generation, and pre-test/post-test scenarios linked to online lectures for dynamic assessment of teaching efficacy.

MedPix is also a distance learning tool, providing Category 1 CME for Physicians and CEU for Nurses. Other links of interest:
+ MedPix Topic Search
+ MedPix Case Search
+ Brain Lesion Locator

MedPix was reviewed at the recent meeting of the Association of University Radiologists, and was ranked as the number two non-commercial teaching file, and number five in the overall evaluation.

MedPix is completely free; registration is not required, except for certain features like uploading cases, editing cases, and CME/CEU. It is available to the general public, and is not restricted to DoD.

MedPix has been running since 2000.

Editor’s Note
The database currently contains 29,506 images for 7,642 cases. From the website:

MEDICAL WARNING NOTICE:
The information provided on this website is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. The reader is fully responsible for confirming the accuracy of this information. Please consult with your healthcare provider before beginning or changing any therapy.

MedPixâ„¢ is a fully web-enabled cross-platform database, integrating images and textual information. Our primary target audience includes physicians and nurses, allied health professionals, medical students, graduate nursing students and other post-graduate trainees.

The content material is organized by disease location (organ system), pathology category, patient profiles, and by image classification and caption. MedPixâ„¢ can be searched through multiple internal image and text search engines. MedPixâ„¢ search formulations may be linked directly to PubMed and other outside search engines with a single click. Additional features – including Category 1 CME and CNE credits, quizzes, uploading, and editing – are available to registered users.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.