The MICCAI Society, through the Education Working Group, supports Special Interest Groups, called SIGs, to increase collaboration, activities, and the exchange of ideas in a specific area of research related to medical image computing and computer assisted intervention.

SIGs that are managed independently by a board of directors drawn from the MICCAI Society who are representatives from the academic, industrial, and clinical communities, and experts in the SIG’s specific area of interest.

At MICCAI 2024, posters from seven SIGs were on display to highlight their goals and activities. We are happy to share their updates and posters with the full MICCAI community below.

If you would like to learn more about a specific SIG or would like to get involved, visit their webpages.

Special Interest Group on Biomedical Image Analysis Challenges (SIG-BIAC or SIG for Challenges)

The SIG for Challenges originated as a Working Group of the Board in 2018 and became a Special Interest Group in 2021. Since that time, there has been a steady increase in the number of challenges accepted from 15 in 2018 to 50 in 2024. The board includes eight members.

The SIG’s mission is to build consensus regarding standards and best practices leading to better quality, reproducibility, interpretability and transparency of benchmarking studies. The MICCAI Society is uniquely positioned to be the leading organization with respect to systematic benchmarking of biomedical image analysis algorithms. The SIG for Challenges assists the MICCAI Society in handling challenge-related aspects and is focussed on three areas: Science (eg Metrics Reloaded), Education (eg webinars) and Infrastructure (eg Lighthouse Challenge initiative).

For more details on SIG for Challenges, see their MICCAI 2024 poster.

Special Interest Group on Biomedical Image Registration (SIG-BIR)

The SIG-BIR’s mission to gain interest in and representation of image registration in the MICCAI community. Established in 2021, initiatives to date have included specialized gatherings on image registration including:

• Challenges: Learn2Reg 2020-2024, OncoReg ’23-‘24
• 11^th Workshop on Biomedical Image Registration at MICCAI 2024
• WBIR 2024

A new 2024 Awesome Medical image Registration initiative is underway to make image registration more accessible and reproducible, gain visibility and win monetary awards.

For more details on SIG-BIR, see their MICCAI 2024 poster.

Special Interest Group on Medical Ultrasound (SIG-MUS)

The SIG-MUS was created in 2017 with a focus on bringing together the MIC and CAI communities to work towards the next generation of medical ultrasound imaging methods and systems. The SIG is also working to bridge the research and clinical ultrasound communities to design and implement new ultrasound-enabled applications that provide revolutionary healthcare benefits.

At MICCAI 2024, SIG-MUS delivered the 5^th annual Advances in Simplifying Medical UltraSound (ASMUS) Workshop, receiving a record-breaking number of submissions. They also launched a new data challenge, Trackerless 3D Freehand Ultrasound Reconstruction Challenge (TUS-REC 2024) collecting over 1 million optically tracked ultrasound images. Going forward, they are working to create an open repository for ultrasound datasets and models accessible on an interactive webpage for researchers to access. Watch for their upcoming seminar series on ultrasound-related research topics.

For more details on SIG-MUS, see their MICCAI 2024 poster.

Special Interest Group on Cardiac Imaging, Computation Modeling and Clinical Sciences (SIG-Cardiac)

The SIG-Cardiac was recently established in the summer of 2024 to help advance cardiac care through the clinical application of research technologies. Its mission is to bring together cardiologists, radiologists, computer scientists, and engineers to promote interdisciplinary collaboration, integrate research breakthroughs, educate and train by organizing challenges and tutorials at MICCAI and bridge research and clinical practice. To date, it has been active in the CARE 2024 Challenge and the ACAIT 2024 conference.

For more details on SIG-Cardiac, see their MICCAI 2024 poster.

Special Interest Group on Explainable AI for Medical Image Analysis (SIG-xMedIA)

The SIG-xMedIA was established in 2024 to address the crucial need for transparency, reliability, and trustworthiness in Interpretable and Explainable AI for medical image analysis.

The SIG aims to strengthen the exchange between research groups by facilitating collaboration, sharing insights, and collectively drive advancements in Explainable AI. They organized the Toward Real World Medical Image Analysis Challenge at MICCAI 2024, are curating standard and public real-world medical image datasets (more than 1500+ cases) for model development and evaluation. They are alsosupporting tutorials, workshops, and educational initiatives to encourage diverse participation and foster best practices.

For more details on SIG-xMedIA, see their MICCAI 2024 poster.

Special Interest Group on Fairness of AI in Medical Image (SIG-FAIMI)

The SIG-FAIMI started as an independent group in 2022 and was formalized as a SIG in 2024. The SIG’s mission is the address and mitigate fairness issues in medical imaging AI, engage with fairness experts, boost research on AI fairness, expand the MICCAI network to include legal and ethics specialists and improve communication and resources on AI fairness. The SIG is led by eight Board members in collaboration with the FAIMI Advisory Panel and the FAIMI Activity Committee. It includes 300 members made up of postgraduates, academics and students with representation from Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Middle East and Australia.

To date, it has helped researchers to access key academic literature through a resources webpage, hosted a free FAIMI Group online workshop (2022) and the FAIMI-EPIMI MICCAI half-day workshop (2023). This year, they organized a FAIMI tutorial at ISBI 2024, FIFAI summer school (with RISE-MICCAI), an online symposium in December 2024 and a MELBA Special Issue. They are also hosted the FAIMI-EPIMI MICCAI Workshop at MICCAI 2024 with keynote speaker Dr. Mercy Asiedu.

For more details on SIG-FAIMI, see their MICCAI 2024 poster.

Special Interest Group on African Network for Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Imaging (SIG-AFRICAI)

The African Network for Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Imaging was created in 2022 in preparation for MICCAI 2024 in Marrakesh, Morocco. It was officially established as a MICCAI SIG in 2024 and now has more than 750 members from 32 African countries plus members from North America, Europe and Asia. The board consists of nine members working to connect researchers, and all stakeholders interested in MICCAI-related research and applications in Africa.

SIG-AFRICAI has established the AFRICAI webinar series and organized the 1^st AFRICAI Summer School (held online in 2023). The SIG has also helped to organize the Mycetoma MicroImage: Detect and Classify Challenge (mAIcetoma) in Sudan and hosted the MICCAI meets AFRICAI Workshop and the Open Data Session at MICCAI 2024.

For more details on SIG-AFRICAI, see their MICCAI 2024 poster.