Overview of the CLEF 2010 medical image retrieval track

The seventh edition of the ImageCLEF medical retrieval task was organized in 2010. As in 2008 and 2009, the collection in 2010 uses images and captions from the Radiology and Radiographics journals published by RSNA (Radiological Society of North America). Three sub- tasks were conducted within the auspices of the medical task: modality detection, image-based retrieval and case-based retrieval. The goal of the modality detection task was to detect the acquisition modality of the images in the collection using visual, textual or mixed methods. The goal of the image-based retrieval task was to retrieve an ordered set of images from the collection that best met the information need specified as a textual statement and a set of sample images, while the goal of the case-based retrieval task was to return an ordered set of articles (rather than images) that best met the information need provided as a description of a "case". The number of registrations to the medical task increased to 51 research groups. However, groups submitting runs have remained stable at 16, with the number of submitted runs increasing to 155. Of these, 61 were ad-hoc runs, 48 were case-based runs while the remaining 46 were modality classification runs. The best results for the ad-hoc retrieval topics were obtained using mixed methods with textual methods also performing well. Textual methods were clearly superior for the case-based topics. For the modality detection task, although textual and visual methods alone were relatively successful, combining these techniques proved most effective.