AN EMPIRICAL-INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE OF CHEST RADIOGRAPH FINDINGS

A method of investigating the conceptual structure of findings is pres ented, in which: 1) finding statements are extracted manually from fre e text, 2) the main concepts in each finding are manually identified a nd classified, and 3) the resulting sets of classes are examined for i nsights into finding structure. This study applies the method to chest radiograph reports. Although the subject of the findings studied fall into seven classes, the same conceptual structure can be used for mos t of them.