Guest editorial
The International Society and Conference Series on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) is the premier international conference featuring in-depth papers on medical image computing, computer-assisted intervention and medical robotics. The multidisciplinary nature of these fields brings together clinicians, bioscientists, computer scientists, engineers, physicists and other researchers who contribute to advances in the methodology and applications of medical image computing and robotic intervention.
The Ninth International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2006, took place in the Concert Hall of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 1–6, 2006. Satellite workshops and tutorials were held at the IT University in Copenhagen. In total, 624 researchers attended the meeting–the highest number yet.
The MICCAI 2006 conference received 578 scientific paper submissions, which underwent a careful review process resulting in the selection of 39 papers for the oral program and 193 for the poster program. Following the conference, three special issues have been produced by the journals Medical Image Analysis, Academic Radiology, and Computer Aided Surgery. Presentations for possible publication in these journals were selected on the basis of their conference review scores and were assigned to the respective journals by topic.
For this MICCAI special issue of Computer Aided Surgery, 16 presenters at MICCAI 2006 were invited to submit extended, updated versions of their presentations. The received manuscripts were scrutinized using the journal's regular review process, and six papers were accepted for inclusion in this issue:
San José Estépar et al. present a navigation system, IRGUS, for endoscopic and transgastric access interventions, and validate the system in in vivo pilot studies using ultrasound and CT images.
Guo et al. present a retrospective study to evaluate the target localization accuracy and precision of six approaches used in 55 subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation procedures for the reduction of Parkinson's disease symptoms.
Leong et al. present a surgical learning system for advanced laparoscopic procedures using Hidden Markov Models, tested on 11 subjects with mixed abilities.
Lerotic et al. present an investigation of the use of fixational movements in robotic-assisted minimal invasive surgery such that the perceived resolution of the foveal field-of-view is greater than the intrinsic resolution of the laparoscope camera.
Kazanzides et al. present a robot system for image-guided experimental procedures on small animals, enabling the performance of physical actions at specific positions identified on a preoperative image. The system is demonstrated for the measurement of pO2 with physical probes based on tumor hypoxia images obtained in an animal PET scanner.
Yu et al. present a 16-degrees-of-freedom robotic system developed and fabricated for prostate brachytherapy, along with strategies to reduce needle deflection and target movement based on extensive experimental validation.
We would like to thank all those who made this special issue possible: The authors for submitting their manuscripts and revising them in a timely manner; the reviewers for providing high-quality reviews; and the editors and publisher of Computer Aided Surgery for their respective contributions.