Contextual computer-aided detection: Improving bright lesion detection in retinal images and coronary calcification identification in CT scans

► Exploiting contextual information for lesion detection in medical images improve significantly the final classification. ► Contextual information helps to solve ambiguities in lesion classification. ► Exploiting contextual information makes the method more robust against segmentation errors. ► Using contextual information, the CAD system reached the performance obtained by human observers. ► Combining local and contextual information helps to emulate human cognitive process in medical image understanding.