Submission Deadline: 30 April 2023 (closed)
Medical image computing (MIC) is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of computer science, information engineering, electrical engineering, physics, mathematics and medicine. This field develops computational and mathematical methods for solving problems pertaining to medical images and their use for biomedical research and clinical care. The main goal of MIC is to extract clinically relevant information or knowledge from medical images. While closely related to the field of medical imaging, MIC focuses on the computational analysis of the images, not their acquisition. The methods can be grouped into several broad categories: image segmentation, image registration, image-based physiological modelling, and others. Medical image computing typically operates on uniformly sampled data with regular x-y-z spatial spacing (images in 2D and volumes in 3D, generically referred to as images). At each sample point, data is commonly represented in integral form such as signed and unsigned short (16-bit), although forms from unsigned char (8-bit) to 32-bit float are not uncommon. The particular meaning of the data at the sample point depends on modality: for example a CT acquisition collects radiodensity values, while an MRI acquisition may collect T1 or T2-weighted images. Longitudinal, time-varying acquisitions may or may not acquire images with regular time steps. Fan-like images due to modalities such as curved-array ultrasound are also common and require different representational and algorithmic techniques to process. Other data forms include sheared images due to gantry tilt during acquisition; and unstructured meshes, such as hexahedral and tetrahedral forms, which are used in advanced biomechanical analysis (e.g., tissue deformation, vascular transport, bone implants).
Traditionally, medical image computing has been seen to address the quantification and fusion of structural or functional information available at the point and time of image acquisition. In this regard, it can be seen as quantitative sensing of the underlying anatomical, physical or physiological processes. However, over the last few years, there has been a growing interest in the predictive assessment of disease or therapy course. Image-based modelling, be it of biomechanical or physiological nature, can therefore extend the possibilities of image computing from a descriptive to a predictive angle. In this context, medical imaging and image computing play an increasingly important role as they provide systems and methods to image, quantify and fuse both structural and functional information about the human being in vivo. These two broad research areas include the transformation of generic computational models to represent specific subjects, thus paving the way for personalized computational models. Individualization of generic computational models through imaging can be realized in three complementary directions: (a) definition of the subject-specific computational domain (anatomy) and related subdomains (tissue types); (b) definition of boundary and initial conditions from (dynamic and/or functional) imaging; and (c) characterization of structural and functional tissue properties.
In this SI, we specially focus on innovative computational models for solving the problems in the field of medical image computing.
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