A method for processing medical images for use in the detection and diagnosis of disease comprises classifying regions of interest within the medical images based on a hierarchy of anatomical models and signal models of signal information of an image acquisition device used to acquire the medical images. The anatomical models are derived to be representative of anatomical information indicative of a given disease. A computer-aided system for use in the diagnosis and detection of disease comprises an image acquisition device for acquiring a plurality of image data sets and a processor adapted to process the image data sets. The processor is adapted to classify selected tissue types within the image data sets based on a hierarchy of signal and anatomical models and the processor is further adapted to differentiate anatomical context of the classified tissue types for use in the diagnosis and detection of disease.