Using Grammars in Medical Imaging: A Comprehensive Overview

The aim of this article is to present a comprehensive overview concerning the use of syntactic pattern recognition methods in medical image analysis and representations in quite a lot of applications. To complete this purpose, we used a systematic procedure. The used methods and techniques were extorted from each study, the primitives used, the results obtained in medical images using grammars, and techniques used for learning the grammatical rules. Grammars can represent different lesions in medical images such as cardiac and scintigraphic images, coronaries arteries and bone radiographs. Grammar formalisms proved to be useful for medical data processing. The reviewed methods and techniques allowed a comprehensive overview. Most of articles were published in the last decade. Furthermore, it can be concluded that it is an extremely promising research line, especially when the studies showed a recognition rate more than 90%.