On 19 December last year Mario Cypko was awarded for outstanding research achievements in medicine and life sciences on the occasion of the 12th Leipzig Research Festival of the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Biosciences,  Pharmacy and Psychology at the Leipzig University.

The computer scientist presented under the research topic “Patient-specific treatment model using MEBNS: example of laryngeal carcinoma” the state of research results in developing a Multi-Entity Bayesian Network (MEBN) which supports the complex decision-making processes of the physician in the case of laryngeal cancer.

15 young scientists of ICCAS in total presented their research work on posters in the subject area Computer Assisted Surgery. The related abstracts can be viewed under the following link:

RF Abstractbook

This year, the National University of Singapore was venue for the 15th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering (ICBME). There, Dr. Stefan Bohn gave the lecture “An interoperability architecture for networked medical devices and its application to neurosurgery” to present the open integration platform for networking of medical devices in the operating room, developed at ICCAS. The presentation has met with great interest among scientists from USA, France and Germany. In addition, Dr. Bohn served as session chair the meeting “Assisted Technologies”.

Besides lectures from the fields of diagnostic medical devices, imaging, medical assistance systems and plenary talks about the integration of systems of computer-assisted surgery and robotics, particularly a lecture about the stage in development of the cooperation between humans and robots in rehabilitation and non-medical research was very impressive.

In early December 2013, Philipp Liebmann traveled to the DICOM WG24 Meeting, which took place in Chicago (IL, USA) as part of the 99th Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

The young scientist of the research area Standards (STD) was co-organizer of the DICOM WG 24 Meeting for the fifth time, which is chaired by Prof. Dr. Heinz U. Lemke. In addition to the research exchange with partners from the DICOM WG 24 Group, such as Philips, GE and Medtronic, the development of the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Standard was in main focus of the discussions.

At the end of November 2013, the Munich Aortic & Carotid Conference (MAC) took place for the third time at Klinikum rechts der Isar. There, Sandra von Sachsen gave an invited lecture on “Medical Post Processor for stent-graft comparison” and hence enriched the subject area dealing with innovations in biomechanical imaging, modeling and simulation for the aorta.

The Medical Post Processor is a software module that evaluates the results of a finite element analysis for stent graft behavior. As part of the lecture, von Sachsen presented the software functionalities and spoke about the results of a user study that was conducted to discuss the intended simulation-based selection of endoprostheses.

This year, the 12th Annual Conference of the German Society for Computer and Roboter-Assisted Surgery (CURAC) was held in Innsbruck from 28 to 30 November. ICCAS was represented by Professor Thomas Neumuth, Dr Kerstin Denecke and Dr Claire Chalopin.

Dr Chalopin introduced a “Method for the evaluation of ultrasound perfusion for brain tumor surgery”, which was developed in collaboration with the Department of Simulation and Graphics at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and the Department of Neurosurgery at Leipzig University Hospital.

Congratulations go to Stefan Franke! The graduated computer scientist from the research field Model -based Automation and Integration (MAI) won this year’s Poster Award of CURAC Annual Conference with his contribution “A surgical assistance system for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation based on a Magic Lens concept”. It presents an intraoperative assistance system which visualizes anatomical structures under the patient’s skin during the implementation of minimally invasive cardiac interventions.

On Friday 8 November 2013 the ICCAS was one station of the Frienz Study Group tour, where scientists from New Zealand explore future cooperation partners. Dr. Robyn Whittaker and Malcolm Pollok from the National Institute for Health Innovation (Nihi) at the University of Auckland presented their expertise and research interests in the field of medical computer science and application technology to the ICCAS employees. Dr. Kerstin Denecke in turn made the two guests familiar with the research themes of the ICCAS. Both sides will now examine more closely whether there are overlaps and opportunities for future collaborations that could lead to a common project.

The Frienz Study Group tour is an initiative of the European Commission and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which was initiated to support scientific cooperation between Europe and New Zealand. The team led by Dr. Robyn Whittaker and Malcolm Pollock includes researchers and educators in the fields of medical computer science, systems and strategy, clinical applications, clinical trials and telemedicine.

Der für den 29. Oktober 2013 anberaumte Kolloquiumsvortrag von Dr. Nicolas Gerber zum Thema “Computer Assisted Planning and Image Guided Surgery Systems for Implantable Hearing Systems“ wird verschoben. Er findet am 03. Dezember 2013 um 13:30 Uhr im ICCAS-Konferenzraum statt.

After the contribution of Dr. med. Patrick Dubach there will be two more scientific colloquium lectures at the ICCAS at the end of October 2013.

Dr.-Ing. Klaus-Hendrik Wolf is speaking about “Assistive health technologies for new lifestyles and new forms of care” on 25 October 2013. He is research fellow at the Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics at the TU Braunschweig and the Hannover Medical School.

On 29 October 2013 Dr. Nicolas Gerber from the Artificial Organ (ARTORG) Center for Biomedical Engineering Research at the University of Bern will lecture on “Computer Assisted Planning and Image Guided Surgery Systems for Implantable Hearing Systems”. There, Dr. Gerber is head of the research area “Artificial Heraring Reserach”.

Sandra von Sachsen hold an invited lecture on “Simulation-based planning of EVARs” (Edovascular Aneurysm Repairs) at the Dresdner Aortensymposium on 11 October 2013. She presented the results of a Germany-wide study to the evaluation of a new developed software module – the Medical Postprocessor. This is used to analyze the results from a finite element analysis of stent graft behavior.

During the symposium von Sachsen met renowned physicians and scientists who research in the area of diagnosis and therapy of diseases of the aorta. The contribution allowed a continuation of the interdisciplinary discussion on simulation-based stent graft planning.

Dr. Patrick Dubach is currently completing a one-year fellowship at the ICCAS and the ENT-Clinic an Polyclinic of the University Hospital Leipzig, which is funded by the Swiss government. The ENT specialist from the Inselspital Bern chose Leipzig for his research stay abroad as part of his habilitation application to take advantage of the excellent research conditions of the Center for Computer Assisted Surgery and to promote the long-standing cooperation between ENT experts of the University Hospitals Bern and Leipzig.

The Bern native has been senior physician since 2009 and was appointed medical director of the ENT clinic at the Inselspital in 2011. In his current research project Dr. Dubach deals with the planning and visualization of middle and inner ear implants, their applications are based on a Bone Thickness Map and should be increasingly automated by using endoscopes. Clinical studies with patients are ongoing at the University Hospitals Bern and Leipzig. Other projects include the final editing of the manual article “Image Guided Therapy” at Axel Springer Verlag and studies on “Computer navigated biopsies of skull base tumors.”

Dr. Dubach is giving an overview over his current research on 21 October 2013 at the ICCAS colloquium. The lecture on “Experiments with Image Guided ENT: from Applied Bone Thickness Map to CEUS Fistulography ” will demonstrate his research activities.

The ICCAS team wishes our Swiss colleague a successful and instructive time in Leipzig and is looking forward to a good cooperation.