Book excerpt: Medical Image Databases covers the new technologies of biomedical imaging databases and their applications in clinical services, education, and research. Authors were selected because they are doing cutting-edge basic or technology work in relevant areas. This was done to infuse each chapter with ideas from people actively investigating and developing medical image databases rather than simply review the existing literature. The authors have analyzed the literature and have expanded on their own research. They have also addressed several common threads within their generic topics. These include system architecture, standards, information retrieval, data modeling, image visualizations, query languages, telematics, data mining, and decision supports. The new ideas and results reported in this volume suggest new and better ways to develop imaging databases and possibly lead us to the next information infrastructure in biomedicine. Medical Image Databases is suitable as a textbook for a graduate-level course on biomedical imaging or medical image databases, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.