Institute doctors share pediatric surgical insights at CARS 2011

From June 22 to 25, 2011, Berlin, Germany hosted the annual Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (CARS 2011) congress. Founded in 1985, CARS focuses on research and development for computer assisted systems and their applications in radiology and surgery. The annual meeting is designed to bring together international innovators in radiology, surgery, engineeri

ng, informatics, and/or healthcare management to present and discuss topics such as:

• Image- and model-guided interventions
• Medical imaging
• Image processing and visualization
• Computer aided diagnosis
• Medical simulation and education
• Surgical navigation and robotics
• Model-guided medicine
• Personalized medicine

“CARS aims to advance the state of the art in computer aided radiology and surgery by providing a forum for scientists and clinicians to communicate about surgical challenges and possible engineering solutions,” explained CARS moderator, presenter, and attendee Kevin Cleary, PhD, who is the Technical Director of the Bioengineering Initiative at the Sh

eikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation.

This year marked the first year of participation for the Sheikh Zayed Institute, and the first year that pediatric surgical challenges and innovations were a primary topic of discussion.

“Pediatric surgery is a relatively new topic for CARS, but we hope to levera

ge this opportunity to explore the pediatric topics discussed at CARS,” said Dr. Cleary.

First-time attendee and presenter Katherine Davenport, MD, a fellow in the Institute, noted that adding the pediatric surgical perspective was a new and exciting con

sideration for many of the engineers and clinicians. “Many had never considered pediatric surgery innovation as a real niche, and as a result we saw much enthusiasm about how to tackle the limitations in the realm of pediatric surgical innovation.”

Several Sheikh Zayed Institute doctors participated in the meeting, including:

Dr. Cleary (see photo, right), who serves as president of ISCAS (International Society for Computer Aided Surgery) and played a large role in planning the presentations at the conference

• Presentation: Software Engineering of Medical Information and Model Management Systems
• Presentation: Advanced Technologies for interventional radiology: electromagnetic navigation and robotics
• Tutorial: Open Source Software
• Chaired several sessions: “Surgical Robotics and Instrumentation,” “New Technologies in Endoscopic Surgery for Tumor Resection,” and “Medical Robotics, Instrumentation, and Modeling”

Craig Peters, MD (see photo, right):

• Invited lecture: Envisioning the Future of Robotic-assisted Pediatric Laparoscopic Surgery
• Panel : The Digital Operating Room, Modeling, and Visualization

Katherine Davenport, MD (see photo, below):

• Invited lecture: Technology Challenges in Image-guided Pediatric Laparoscopic Surgery
• Panel : ISCAS / IPCAI Industry panel (collaboration between industry, academics, and clinical practice)
• Presentation: Workflow for bringing image fusion to pediatric laparoscopic surgery for improved intraoperative visualization

“It was great to gain exposure to the cutting edge of surgical innovation,” said Dr. Davenport of her visit to CARS.