This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI'98, held in Cambridge, MA, USA, in October 1998. The 134 revised papers presented were carefully selected from a total of 243 submissions. The book is divided into topical sections on surgical planning, surgical navigation and measurements, cardiac image analysis, medical robotic systems, surgical systems and simulators, segmentation, computational neuroanatomy, biomechanics, detection in medical images, data acquisition and processing, neurosurgery and neuroscience, shape analysis, feature extraction, registration, and ultrasound.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI'98, held in Cambridge, MA, USA, in October 1998. The 134 revised papers presented were carefully selected from a total of 243 submissions. The book is divided into topical sections on surgical planning, surgical navigation and measurements, cardiac image analysis, medical robotic systems, surgical systems and simulators, segmentation, computational neuroanatomy, biomechanics, detection in medical images, data acquisition and processing, neurosurgery and neuroscience, shape analysis, feature extraction, registration, and ultrasound.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI'99, held in Cambridge, UK, in September 1999. The 133 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 213 full-length papers submitted. The book is divided into topical sections on data-driven segmentation, segmentation using structural models, image processing and feature detection, surfaces and shape, measurement and interpretation, spatiotemporal and diffusion tensor analysis, registration and fusion, visualization, image-guided intervention, robotic systems, and biomechanics and simulation.

The 6th International Conference on Medical Imaging and Computer-Assisted Intervention,MICCAI2003,washeldinMontr ́ eal,Qu ́ ebec,CanadaattheF- rmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel during November 15–18, 2003. This was the ?rst time the conference had been held in Canada. The proposal to host MICCAI 2003 originated from discussions within the Ontario Consortium for Ima- guided Therapy and Surgery, a multi-institutional research consortium that was supported by the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Ministry of E- erprise, Opportunity and Innovation. The objective of the conference was to o?er clinicians and scientists a - rum within which to exchange ideas in this exciting and rapidly growing ?eld. MICCAI 2003 encompassed the state of the art in computer-assisted interv- tions, medical robotics, and medical-image processing, attracting experts from numerous multidisciplinary professions that included clinicians and surgeons, computer scientists, medical physicists, and mechanical, electrical and biome- cal engineers. The quality and quantity of submitted papers were most impressive. For MICCAI 2003 we received a record 499 full submissions and 100 short c- munications. All full submissions, of 8 pages each, were reviewed by up to 5 reviewers, and the 2-page contributions were assessed by a small subcomm- tee of the Scienti?c Review Committee. All reviews were then considered by the MICCAI 2003 Program Committee, resulting in the acceptance of 206 full papers and 25 short communications. The normal mode of presentation at MICCAI 2003 was as a poster; in addition, 49 papers were chosen for oral presentation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2000, held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA in October 2000.The 136 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 194 submissions. The book offers topical sections on neuroimaging and neuroscience, segmentation, oncology, medical image analysis and visualization, registration, surgical planning and simulation, endoscopy and laparoscopy, cardiac image analysis, vascular image analysis, visualization, surgical navigation, medical robotics, plastic and craniofacial surgery, and orthopaedics.

The fifth international Conference in Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI 2002) was held in Tokyo from September 25th to 28th, 2002. This was the first time that the conference was held in Asia since its foundation in 1998. The objective of the conference is to offer clinicians and scientists the opportunity to collaboratively create and explore the new medical field. Specifically, MICCAI offers a forum for the discussion of the state of art in computer-assisted interentions, medical robotics, and image processing among experts from multi-disciplinary professions, including but not limited to clinical doctors, computer scientists, and mechanical and biomedical engineers. The expectations of society are very high; the advancement of medicine will depend on computer and device technology in coming decades, as they did in the last decades. We received 321 manuscripts, of which 41 were chosen for oral presentation and 143 for poster presentation. Each paper has been included in these proceedings in eight-page full paper format, without any differentiation between oral and poster papers. Adherence to this full paper format, along with the increased number of manuscripts, surpassing all our expectations, has led us to issue two proceedings volumes for the first time in MICCAI’s history. Keeping to a single volume by assigning fewer pages to each paper was certainly an option for us considering our budget constraints. However, we decided to increase the volume to offer authors maximum opportunity to argue the state of art in their work and to initiate constructive discussions among the MICCAI audience.

In the four years of its existence, MICCAI has developed into the premier - nual conference on medical image computing and computer-assisted interv- tion. The single-track conference has an interdisciplinary character, bringing - getherresearchersfromboththenaturalsciencesandvariousmedicaldisciplines. It provides the international forum for developments concerning all aspects of medical image processing and visualization, image-guided and computer-aided techniques, and robot technology in medicine. The strong interest in MICCAI is con?rmed by the large number of subm- sions we received this year, which by far surpassed our expectations. The arrival of the shipload of papers just before the deadlines (one in the European and the otherin theAmericantime zone)wasa particularlyenjoyableexperience,aswas the whole procedure of preparing the scienti?c programme. Both the quantity and quality of the submissions allowed us to compose a volume of high quality papers, which we are sure will contribute to the further development of this exciting ?eld of research. As for the hard numbers, in total 338 submissions were received. Next to full papers, short communications were solicited for works in progress,hardware prototypes, and clinical case studies. Long papers were reviewed by three or four reviewers and short papers by two or three reviewers. The ?nal selection of papers was carried out by the Programme Board. Out of the 246 long papers, 36 were accepted for oral presentation and 100 as full posters. An additional 75 of the long papers, and 47 out of 92 short papers were accepted as short posters.