The demand for quantitative techniques in biomedical image informatics

Abstract

With recent technological advances, biomedical image informatics has become a quickly rising field. It focuses on the use of computational techniques to process and analyze biomedical images. Its goal is to obtain useful knowledge from complicated and heterogeneous images from different modalities for biomedical research. Although the advancement of imaging technologies has provided a data explosion, most biomedical images are only used by the researchers who create them. The lack of a canonical procedure, from data acquisition to data analysis, contributes to this issue. As the number of biomedical images increases, the demand for quantitative techniques rises. In order to increase awareness of the needs and importance of quantitative techniques for biomedical image informatics, this paper reviews several aspects including biomedical imaging, image repositories, and image processing. We explore the state of the art technology available in quantitative techniques for biomedical image informatics. The essential techniques for quantification, such as imaging devices, biomedical image management, and image processing, are further summarized.