March 1, 2017 saw the start of the industry collaboration project IMPACT. Funded by the BMBF German Ministry of Education and Research, it belongs to the new ICCAS research group Life Support Systems. The research group is headed by Dr. Andreas Reske from the Center for Anesthesiology, Intensive Care, Emergency Medicine and Pain Therapy at the Heinrich Braun Clinic in Zwickau.

Research is being conducted on a mobile 3D imaging system based on electrical impedance tomography (EIT). This non-invasive procedure is designed to provide doctors at the scene of an emergency with visual and functional information on the ventilation of the patient’s lungs, similar to an ECG of the heart. Data is acquired and transferred via an electrode belt attached to the patient’s chest. ICCAS is joined in this project by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at HTWK Leipzig University of Applied Sciences as well as the two commercial companies Fritz Stephan Medizintechnik GmbH and Gesellschaft für Intelligente Textile Produkte (ITP GmbH).

Their common goal is to develop a market-ready device certified under medical product legislation which substantially improves the monitoring of lung ventilation, particularly in intensive care and emergency medicine.

Auf dem diesjährigen 134. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Chirurgie wird Prof. Thomas Neumuth einen eingeladenen Vortrag zum Thema “Modellierung von chirurgischen Eingriffen” halten. Der Vortag findet in der Session “Surgical Data Science: Ein Weg zur ‘akademischen Emanzipation’ der Chirurgie?” der Sektion “Minimalinvasive, computer- und telematik-assistierte Chirurgie (CTAC)” statt.

Wann? Dienstag, 21.03.2017 | 14:36 Uhr – 15:54 Uhr
Wo? Internationales Congress Center München, Obergeschoss 1, Saal 11

In September 2016, ICCAS welcomed a Japanese delegation from the project SCOT (Smart Cyber Operating Theater). SCOT is a project being carried out by the Institute for Advanced Biomedical Engineering & Science at Tokyo Women’s Medical University. And similar to the German OR.NET project, it deals with the design and construction of an integrated operating room. In terms of their intentions and achievements so far, these two sister projects are globally unique.

ICCAS has now paid a return visit to Tokyo. During an important symposium on biomedical engineering, Prof. Thomas Neumuth, Stefan Franke and Erik Schreiber explained ICCAS’s work on open OR networking to participants from the Japanese industrial and research sectors. During a subsequent workshop, possible synergies between German and Japanese activities regarding the development of integration technologies for operating rooms were explored. Another item on the agenda was a visit to the SCOT demonstrator – a robot-based, integrated operating theater with intraoperative MRI optimized for the treatment of brain tumors. Afterwards, a concluding workshop was held at which the theme of device interoperability based on international standardization processes (especially in connection with IHE) was discussed with industry representatives.

The visit revealed several shared points of interest and ideas arguing in favor of future collaboration.

The European Modular Field Hospital (EU-MFH) project was officially launched on February 13 at the kick-off meeting attended by participants from nine European countries. ICCAS will play a key role in both the IT networking of the hospital and electronic patient records – areas represented by Vice Director Professor Thomas Neumuth, who is also on the steering committee.

The aim of this international project is to substantially improve medical care during European disaster relief missions. The various EU Member States are contributing their specific expertise in order to develop a mobile emergency field hospital which can be quickly set up and used to deliver treatment ranging from first response to full hospital care for a large number of patients. ICCAS is tackling the challenge of creating an efficient infrastructure and networking medical equipment and IT assistance systems. And it will also generate digital patient records intended to ease the workload on medical personnel from diagnosis to therapy and documentation.

This project is funded by the European Commission.
More information about the project and the partners

On March 1st, 2017, there will be a Lunch Symposium on Focused Ultrasound (FUS) at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR 2017)
organized by TRANS-FUSIMO (www.trans-fusimo.eu) and EUFUS (www.eufus.org). The event deals with updates on clinical applications of MRgFUS, MRHiFU and reaearch for FUS in moving abdominal organs.

Program

Venue:
Austria Center Vienna
Level 2, Room Z
Bruno-Kreisky-Platz 1
1220 Vienna, Austria

Date and Time:
Wednesday, March 1st, 2017
12.30 pm – 1.30 pm

Auf dem kürzlich in Dresden stattfindenden “Future Technologies” Science Match stellte Prof. Andreas Melzer die neuesten Themen des ICCAS und deren zukünftige Entwicklung vor.

An der Veranstaltung nahmen 100 Spitzen-Forscher der Technikwissenschaften aus dem Land Sachsen Teil, um in je 3 Minuten ihre neuesten Ergebnisse darzubieten.

On January 19, ICCAS began the new year with the Status Seminar to review the past, very eventful twelve months.

The many visitors were welcomed by ICCAS’s Director, Professor Andreas Melzer, who gave a brief overview of the highlights of 2016. Vice Director Professor Thomas Neumuth then explained the positive development of the institute’s key figures, especially the new appointments and the third-party funding granted. Afterwards, the group leaders gave an account of both the goals achieved last year and this year’s milestones to the visitors: primarily members of the Board, the Advisory Board and the Clinical Advisory Board as well as representatives of the project backers. Finally, PD Dr. Andreas Reske gave a presentation on the recently launched project EMU, the aim of which is to develop a ventilation system with electrical impedance imaging. EMU is part of the new ICCAS research area Life Support Systems, as is the EU-wide project EUMFH European Union Medical Field Hospital, which kicked off on January 1 this year.

During the practical part of the event, findings from selected projects such as Thermography, the Digital Patient Model, BIOPASS and Surgical Robotics were presented. Following the seminar, a meeting was held by the Advisory Board, which submitted a report containing valuable recommendations for ICCAS’s future strategy.

We would like to thank all the guests and participants for this very informative day and look forward to continuing to work together in 2017.

To find out more about ICCAS’s activities in 2016, please see the current ICCAS ANNUAL REPORT

We are pleased to announce our first colloquium lecture in 2017. Prof. Rebecca Fahrig – Head of Innovation at Advanced Therapies at Siemens Healthineers – will speak about ‘Integrated multi-modality solutions for interventional and minimally invasive surgery procedures’.

CV
Prof. Rebecca Fahrig was appointed honorary professor at the Pattern Recognition Lab in December 2016. She is currently with Siemens Healthineers as Head of Innovation at Advanced Therapies.
Prior to that Rebecca Fahrig was full professor at the Department of Radiology at Stanford University. Prof. Fahrig received her PhD in medical biophysics at the University of Western Ontario and won numerous awards with her research focusing on imaging for guidance of minimally invasive procedures, multi-modality image guidance, and works on software and hardware that permit the use of a C-arm system for both fluoroscopy and CT imaging.

Abstract
Siemens Healthineers has created the business area ‘Advanced Therapies# in order to better support the customer needs with versatile solutions that offer the latest capabilities to deliver better, faster, and more effective care – during complex procedures just as in daily routine. It is our mission to offer best-in-class imaging based on single or integrated multi-modality solutions for superior treatment options in Cardiology, Interventional Radiology and minimal invasive Surgery.

Date: Wed., Jan. 25, 2017
Time: 2.30 pm – 4.00 pm
Venue: Leipzig University Hospital, Liebigstraße 20, Conference Room 0015/0016 (Glaskasten)

We look forward to welcoming all interested parties!

Another ultra-modern 3-Tesla-MRI was put into operation at the Department of Diagonstic and Interventional Radiology at Leipzig University Hospital. Thanks to a research cooperation with ICCAS, it includes an additional device for the non-invasive treatment of cancer with high-intensity focused ultrasound.

press article (German)

A peaceful and relaxing Christmas time and a great start into the new year to all of you. We are already looking forward to welcoming numerous guests to our status seminar on January 19, 2017.