6th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI 2003) Preface

Abstract

The 6th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI 2003) was held in Montreal Canada from 15 to 18 November 2003 at Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel. A total of 252 papers were selected from 599 submitted manuscripts, and delivered as either platform or poster presentations. MICCAI has become the premier international meeting in medical image analysis, featur- ing the application of medical images to surgical and therapeutic intervention, which permits clinicians, surgeons, computer scientists, mechanical, electrical and biomedical engineers to discuss the state-of-art in computer-assisted interventions, medical robotics, visualization and image processing. Following the meeting, the editors of the MICCAI proceedings contacted the authors of papers dealing with computer-assisted interventions who had ranked highly in the initial review process, and invited them to prepare full-length manuscripts for submission to Computer Aided Surgery. Though the papers were to be based primarily on the research presented in Montreal, the authors were encouraged to expand their work and to incorporate feedback received during the conference, along with additional data obtained subsequently. These papers were then subjected to a further peer-review process. This issue of Computer Aided Surgery presents the best of these papers and serves to illustrate both the wide range of research interests represented within MICCAI, and the truly international nature of the meeting, with contributions from Europe, North America and Asia. The topics represented are reflective of the growing role of minimally invasive procedures, and emphasize the important problem of accurate image- based instrument tracking that is crucial to the success of these procedures.