Mission

The Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention Society (the MICCAI Society) is dedicated to the promotion, preservation and facilitation of research, education and practice in the field of medical image computing and computer assisted medical interventions including biomedical imaging and medical robotics. The Society achieves this aim through the organization and operation of annual high quality international conferences, workshops, tutorials and publications that promote and foster the exchange and dissemination of advanced knowledge, expertise and experience in the field produced by leading institutions and outstanding scientists, physicians and educators around the world. The MICCAI Society is committed to maintaining high academic standards and independence from any personal, political or commercial interests.

Focus

The MICCAI Society strives to be a leading international forum for medical image computing, computer-assisted intervention, and medical robotics. The multidisciplinary nature of these research fields brings together clinicians, bioscientists, computer scientists, engineers, physicists, and other researchers who are contributing to, and need to keep abreast of, advances in the methodology and applications of these fields.

Medical image computing techniques have a wide range of applications in medicine and bioscience. The clinical applications span radiological image interpretation and diagnostics, and a growing number of interventional methods, from minimally invasive techniques to computer-aided and robotic minimally invasive and open surgery. Different image modalities may require different types of processing, and advances in image acquisition systems continuously open up new possibilities for applications which often require the manipulation and integration of medical image information. Many applications depend on integration of the image information with sensor data, e.g. tracking systems, and/or effector control systems, e.g. robots or positioning devices, and/or visual displays or other feedback systems.

The breadth and complexity of the various medical image modalities and computer-based and robotic interventions, coupled with the wide range of scientific and clinical backgrounds of those involved, have encouraged the development of numerous subgroups working on individual applications. To some extent, this is appropriate, and there is an obvious place for meetings focused on a specific clinical and technical applications. Nevertheless, the applications all draw on a range of shared underlying medical image computing and engineering techniques. Different terminology for the same concepts and methods tends to be adopted by different groups working in isolation. Communication becomes more difficult, unnecessary duplication of effort follows, and cross-fertilisation between domains and applications is reduced. There is a strong need for the unifying forum provided by the MICCAI Society and Conference series.  It is important to emphasize that this is complementary to groups and meetings focused on specific applications. The wide range of topics of relevance to MICCAI (see Scientific and Clinical Topics) reflects this cross-disciplinary approach.

MICCAI seeks to identify the underlying techniques across different applications, promote their technical and clinical validation, and participate in the development of evaluation standards together with clinicians and medical societies.