ICCAS joined the 29th conference of the international Society for Medical Innovation and Technology (iSMIT) in Torino in the beginning of November. Prof. Melzer was chair of the sessions ‘Image Guided Surgery,‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology and Surgery’ as well as ‘New tools for laparoscopy and interventional radiology’. Additionally, he gave a lecture on the ‘Role of multitasking platforms’. Prof. Neumuth introduced the advantages of ‘AI to improve the workflow in a fully integrated operating room on the example of the project OR.net.’

From November 13 – 16, ICCAS presents the comuter assisted robot system ‘RoboDirect’ at MEDICA 2017 in Düsseldorf. RoboDirect should be used for punctures, biopsies or ablations. It supports surgeons or interventional radiologists to optimize the guidance of instruments during image-guided minimal-invasive interventions. This sould reduce stresses and strains for patients and physicians and thus increase precision and efficiency in the long term.

Booth location:
MEDICA 2017
Am Staad
40474 Düsseldorf

Hall 3
Booth: E74a

Mid-October 2017, the kick-off meeting of the project Modular Validation Environment for Medical Device Networks (MoVE) with all project partners took place in Leipzig. MoVE is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for a period of 24 months and is coordinated by the OR.Net e.V. with Prof. Thomas Neumuth as project leader. In recent years, the integration and networking of medical devices have become indispensable elements of modern operating rooms. Currently the market is dominated by closed solutions of international producers. For small and medium-sized medical technology manufacturers the access to the market is limited.
The objective of MoVE is the development of methods which promote the approval as well as the certification process and risk management of open networked medical products in integrated OR-environments. With MoVE a simulated environment will be created to test the networking of medical devices and software components and to validate different parameters. After completion of the project German enterprises will be worldwide the first ones to realize open networking of medical devices in the OR.

Under the direction of Prof. Andreas Melzer, this year’s “4th European Symposium on Focused Ultrasound Therapy” (EUFUS 2017) is held in Leipzig from 26 – 27 October 2017. Experts from 11 European and 5 Asian states, as well as from USA, Canada and Australia talk and discuss about newest research results and state of the art applications in the field of Focused Ultrasound (FUS) and High intensive Focused Ultrasound (HiFU).

Program and Abstract Book EUFUS 2017

The project groups of the Meta-ZIK SONO-RAY – the cooperation between ICCAS, Leipzig and OncoRay, Dresden – performed together with partners such as the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Technology (IBMT, St. Ingbert) a full-day workshop on the subject of ‘Experimantal FUS and HIFU’. About 70 international guests participated in this pre-conference event of the 4th EUFUS Symposium. Amongst other topics they could practically experience the new HIFU system at the Leipzig University Hospital, the building of an ultrasound system and the treatment of cancer cells by ultrasound.

Anfang Oktober 2017 fand ein vom ICCAS organisiertes Tutorial zur Zusammenführung von Visualisierungs- und Analysemethoden für die Auswertung von großen Datenmengen (Big Data) in Phoenix, USA, im Rahmen der IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS 2017) statt. Neben dem ICCAS waren die Magdeburger Otto-von-Guericke Universität, die Technische Universität Darmstadt und das IBM T.J. Watson Research Center als Vortragende beteiligt.

Um zu einer sinnvollen Interpretation von komplexen Bild- und Nichtbilddaten tausender Individuen einer Kohortenstudie zu gelangen, müssen die Daten effizient erhoben, bereinigt, analysiert und visualisiert werden. Das ist eine große Herausforderung. Für die Epidemiologie, die sich mit der Verbreitung, den Ursachen und den Folgen von Krankheiten in der Bevölkerung beschäftigt, ist die Analyse der Kohortendaten jedoch von immenser Bedeutung. Zum einen können Risikofaktoren und deren Einfluss auf bestimmte Krankheiten identifiziert und zum anderen das Krankheitsrisiko festgestellt werden. Zudem profitiert der Gesundheitssektor durch die Analyse der Qualität von Therapien und das Aufdecken von auffälligen Mustern und Trends im Therapieverlauf von dem Big-Data-Ansatz. Über das Tutorial wurden Verknüpfungsmöglichkeiten von Analyse- und Visualisierungstechniken zur Erstellung und Auswertung eines Datenpools vorgestellt. Darüber hinaus wurden offene Forschungsprobleme und aktuelle Trends diskutiert.

Within a ver.di organized workshop union members and interested guests visited the “Intelligent Operating Room” (OR) at ICCAS at the end of September. The future-oriented OR consists of networked medical devices, allows an easy exchange of patient data and provides innovative information and decision assistance systems to support the daily work in hospitals. Besides the technical and medical progress, scientists and guests discussed how the medical staff can be involved to design the digital transformation.

At the annual meeting of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS) e.V., taking place this year in Oldenburg, ICCAS contributes with a lecture on ‘Therapy Decision Support Systems’.

Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2017
Time: 09:00 – 09:15 am
Speaker: Jan Gaebel
Lecture: ‘Considering Information Up-to-Dateness to Increase the Accuracy of Therapy Decision Support Systems’

Abstract

ICCAS‘s Digital Operating Room Summer School (DORS) successfully ended in early September. The feedback of the 26 participants from 12 states was very positive. They were convinced by the well balanced combination of theoretical knowledge transfer, OR-visits and practical units. Physicians of Leipzig University Hospital and Heart Center Leipzig as well as foreign experts supported the extensive summer school program, certified with 38 European CME-Credits (EACCME®). The course contents included computer assisted applications in the fields of ENT-, Neuro-, Visceral- and Heart-surgery, Urology and Radiology, the Digital Patient Model, medical robotics and technologies for the future operating room. The next DORS is scheduled from August 27 – 31, 2018.

At this year’s Conference of the Societies of Biomedical Engineering (BMT) and Medical Physics, ICCAS is represented with a special session on Model-based therapy.
Furthermore, there are contributions on the topics ‘Hyperspectral Imaging’ and ‘Combined PET-MR guided focused ultrasound and radiation therapy’.

This event takes place from September 10-13, 2017 at the International Congress Center Dresden and particularly reflects the increasing networking of biomedical engineering and medical physics in clinical diagnostics and therapy.

Special session talks
Talk Hypersepctral Imaging
Poster FUS