Editorial Casimir A. Kulikowski1 Editorial Reinhold Haux2 Editors Medical Imaging Informatics 1 Department of Computer Science Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA 2 Department of Medical Informatics University of Heidelberg Heidelberg, Germany and University for Health Informatics and Technology Tyrol Innsbruck, Austria The 2002 Yearbook of Medical multiple underlying biological levels Informatics takes as its theme the topic (cellular, molecular, atomic) leading to of Medical Imaging Informatics. The the definition of structural informatics visual nature of so much critical [5], and the development of a Founda- information in the practice, research, tional Model of Anatomy [6]. Mean- and education of medicine and health while, knowledge representations for care would suggest that computer-based integrating multimodal image inter- imaging and its related fields of graphics pretations [7], methods for modeling and visualization should be central to the elastically deformable anatomical practice of medical informatics. Yet, objects [8], integrated segmentation historically, this has not usually been the and visualization systems [9], knowl- case. The need for technological sub- edge-based methods [10], and model- specialization on the part of imaging driven systems for surgery and educa- researchers and the frequently opposite tion [11] have been gradually helping tendency towards generality of informa- renew connections between imaging and tion systems studied and developed by mainstream informatics work. Encour- informatics researchers may have aging further productive collaborations contributed to an increasing separation between researchers in imaging and between the fields in the period from the informatics was one of our motivations 1970’s to the 1990’s. in the choice of Medical Imaging Infor- matics as the theme for this Yearbook. A trend towards re-convergence, however, began in the early 1990’s as The Yearbook of Medical Infor- important new image database, matics is distributed through IMIA’s mapping, registration, and segmentation Member and Corresponding Member issues arose in the context of neuro- Societies worldwide. For the 2002 imaging with the Human Brain Project Yearbook we expect that over 7,000 [1,2], and multimodal, whole body copies will reach the memberships of imaging with the Visible Human Project 45 Member and 8 Corresponding [3,4]. There was early recognition of member societies. The Yearbook’s the need for computer-based knowl- editors are grateful for the contributions edge representations, not only of anato- of distinguished researchers in medical my at the tissue level, but also at the informatics who have prepared five Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2002 3 Editorial invited review papers, six research approximately 40 years ago. Starting Project initiated at around the same and education papers, and six synopses in the mid-1970’s rapid progress in time led to a very large number of of papers included in the different computer-based imaging research and projects in brain data mapping, registra- disciplinary fields covered. In addition practice came from the increasingly tion and segmentation, all of which we owe a debt of gratitude to the 49 specialized, highly mathematical, bio- made clear the new informatics, reviewers who assisted in the selection physical, and engineering models of biometrics, and computational imaging of papers from the recent refereed different imaging modalities (CT, MRI, challenges inherent in integrating literature. digital angiography, ultrasound, nuclear massive visual datasets of subject- medicine imaging, etc.). Various specific data which needed to be The present Yearbook includes specialties such as radiology, cardiolo- abstracted and summarized into atlases papers selected from the literature for gy, and nuclear medicine distinguished and retrievable maps of the brain. the period April 2000 to March 2001. themselves by concentrating their Possibly as result, there has been a re- The criteria for selection include topic efforts on the technologies most awakened interest of medical informa- significance, representativeness and effective for their own diagnostic and tics researchers in imaging problems, coverage of research in a given subfield, therapeutic goals. Hospital or enter- and the development of what can be subject to appropriately high levels of prise-wide storage and retrieval of large identified as a medical imaging informa- quality in presentation and results. A numbers of patient image studies led to tics subspecialty [13]. This is centered more detailed description of these the development of PACS systems, around the problems of image data quality criteria can be downloaded from but, technological, organizational, and representation and abstraction, where http://www.Yearbook.uni-hd.de/ economic constraints tended to divorce ontologies for describing the underlying quality_criteria.pdf. The referees them from novel imaging research, medical knowledge needed to interpret score and rank the papers, and the and they frequently became just another images are now being developed in final selection is made by the editors part of the IT infrastructure for hospitals computationally explicit form [14]. This with the advice of editorial board mem- and clinics. Meanwhile, professional will not only assist in standardization bers from each of the specialty areas. societies and conferences devoted and interoperability, but will be crucial We expect to publish a description of exclusively to biomedical imaging and in making image data more usable for the quality criteria used in selection in its subdisciplines proliferated. The data mining, decision support, and the medical informatics literature in number of researchers in the main- visual modeling and simulation. the coming year to help provide more stream of medical informatics who general insight on this process [12]. remained professionally active in medi- Fundamental issues in imaging that cal imaging began to shrink, and this are well-known to medical informatics This year’s preface to the Yearbook trend continued until recently. researchers include: standards for „From Digital Anatomy to Virtual image information exchange, commu- Scapels and Image Guided Therapy“ The combination of more advanced nication protocols, underlying computer has been prepared by Nicholas Ayache, and user-friendly medical image data data and knowledge representations, Research Director for the Epidaure bases, coupled with improved 2D and coding, nomenclature and vocabulary Project, Medical Imaging and Robotics 3D reconstruction, visualization and for including imaging information in of INRIA (The French National Institute navigation algorithms, is making the electronic medical record, relation for Research in Computer Science and medical imaging results more accessible to computerized guidelines for health Control), Sophia Antipolis, France. to physicians at the point of care. care, information compression, effi- Starting in the early 1990’s the Visible cient indexing of image databases, Human Project produced a widely security and confidentiality of imaging Imaging Informatics and available reference set of multimodal records, etc. Medical/Health Care images of the whole body. Its wide Informatics:The dissemination has led to much anatomi- There are also many informatics Opportunities and Constraints cally-detailed education software, but challenges that require deeper scientif- of Interdisciplinarity more importantly, it has raised impor- ic, technical, and medical expertise as tant informatics issues of knowledge imaging information becomes more Medical informatics researchers representation, modeling, and informa- integrated and pervasive to the practice have contributed to the development tion retrieval for dealing with large- of medicine. These include: of medical imaging methods and scale repositories of such multimodal · the development of better human- systems since the inception of this field digital image sets. The Human Brain computer interaction models for 4 Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2002 Editorial health care that rely not only on the informatics researchers in the develop- D. Fieschi, J. Gouvernet, M. Joubert, increasing power of graphics and ment of working systems for the and G. Soula provide an overview of visualization but also on good psy- practice of health care, and the improve- Research and Development in Health chophysical and cognitive science ment of education. Informatics at the Faculty of Medicine studies, given the multiresolution of Marseille, while György Kozman of nature of many medical imaging Veszprem University describes how studies, and how this affects per- Review Sections education in medical informatics is ception and interpretation of data; based on an information technology · developing better techniques for As is customary, the 2002 Yearbook curriculum at his university. Yu-Chuan automatic segmentation and includes a number of original review Li presents the Evolving Biomedical registration of medical images in artic les, which focus primarily on this Informatics Program at Taipei Medical 3D as well as 2D; year’s theme. An article by Michael University, and Wendy McPhee writes · data abstraction, summarization, Ackerman on “Visible Human Project: about Education Downunder from the and graphical (iconic) represen- From Data to Knowledge” updates Centre of Medical Informatics at tation involved in atlas construction; the status of this seminal