Journal List > J Korean Soc Med Inform > v.10(3) > 1103201

Lee, Seo, Kim, Kim, Hong, Park, and Kim: A Study of Effective Unified Medical Language System Concept Indexing in Radiology Reports

Abstract

OBJECTIVE

For the effective retrieval of clinical information, the elaborate indexing is essential. Two major types of indexing are the human indexing and the automatic or machine indexing. Human indexing shows higher quality but is time consuming, labor-intensive and inconsistent in term assignment activity.

METHODS

Using the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) MetaMap program, we mapped the free text from the diagnosis section of radiology reports into UMLS concepts. To improve the precision of UMLS concept indexing by MetaMap, we evaluated the UMLS subset mapping and semantic type filtering methods, determining the best combination for improved precision.

RESULTS

After calculating the candidates from subset combinations, we obtained more enhanced results by semantic-type filtering.

CONCLUSION

The results may be improved for the complete automation of indexing process.

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