Modern communication standards

such as Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM)

include non-image data for a standardized description of study

patient or technical parameters. However

these tags are rather roughly structured

ambiguous

and often optional. In this paper

we present a novel monohierarchical muti-axiel classification code for medical image retrieval. Our so-called MOAB coding scheme consists of four axes with three to four positions

each in {0

…

9

A

…

Z}. In particular

the modality code (M) describes imaging modality and relevant technical detail

the orientation code (O) models examined body orientation

the anatomy code (A) refers to the body region examined

and the biology code (B) describes the biological system examined. So far

the coding scheme is easily used in a medical image database of about 7000 single digital images

the loading time for 256×256 images was short

and the error rate of query result was low. The MOAB classification coding scheme enables a unique classification of medical images so as to develop further content-based medical image retrieval. The code is flexible and easily to be extended.