Workshop Focuses on Tools for Diagnosing and Grading Crohn's Disease

Jan. 21, 2013 - PRLog -- The European Consortium VIGOR++ has announced its second annual Workshop for the 12th of February this year focusing on recent advances in the tools for diagnosing and grading Crohn's disease. The workshop is hosted by the Academic Medical Centre (AMC) of Amsterdam, acknowledging the centre’s research excellence in the field of bowel diseases. The venue is within easy reach of Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport.

This workshop is the second in a series (the first Workshop took place in London in February 2012) that aim to explore latest advances and key challenges in the integration of clinical data and MRI image analysis, classification and visualization in the context of the Virtual Physiological Human concept. These are enabling the development of a multi-scale, personalized GI tract model-based diagnostic tool deployable on a cloud computing platform. The Workshop is designed to serve as a forum for a diverse and rich mix of innovators - both technologists and clinicians. Attendees have a wide range of backgrounds representing all parts of the diagnonstics and treatment chain including: researchers in universities and hospitals; diagnostics and device companies; public health authorities; private healthcare providers; market analysts and patient groups.

The Workshop programme places emphasis on serving real clinical needs and the programme is organised in three sessions:

• Session 1 features a scene-setting presentation by Dr Debora Testi of SuperComputing Solutions, Italy who will give an overview of the state of the art in VPH research and particularly in sharing and visualising multiscale data and models. Prof. Geert D'Haens of AMC, The Netherlands will update the delegates on the key remaining challenges in screening and diagnosing bowel diseases. Dr Jesica Makanyanga of UCLH, UK will show how clinical data acquisition and data management is being addressed within the VIGOR++ project. Prof Jaap Stoker of AMC will chair this session.
• Session 2 starts with a presentation of the VIGOR++ integrated platform to be given by Mr Laurence Bourn of Biotronics 3D, UK. It will be followed by three short presentations covering recent advances in image analysis by Mr Robiel Naziroglu of TU Delft, The Netherlands, modelling and automatic classification by Mr Peter Schüffler of ETH Zurich, Switzerland and interactive visualization in the context of abdominal imaging by Dr Alexander Wiebel of ZIB, Germany. Dr Frans Vos of TU Delft, The Netherlands and VIGOR++ co-ordinator will chair this session.
• Session 3 features four invited presentations starting with Prof Joachim Hornegger of Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany who will cover advances in medical image analysis and pattern recognition.  Dr Akinola Akinyemi of Toshiba Medical Visualization Systems Europe will continue with atlas-based segmentation to tackle problems of anatomical variability and Prof Eduard Gröller of Vienna University of Technology, Austria will speak on visualisation using knowledge assisted sparse interaction. Mr Chayim Bell of European Federation of Crohn's & Ulcerative Colitis Associations will close the session by providing the Patients’ Perspective. Prof Andrea Laghi, "Sapienza" - University of Rome will chair this session.

“There are several examples of clinical problems which can benefit from the tools being developed within VIGOR++. These problems require an integrated approach covering image analysis, classification, visualisation as well as efficient distributed computing, and thus there is a pressing need to exchange knowledge and debate on the best practices from data acquisition to clinical validation” says Dr Costis Kompis, of Vodera Ltd and member of the VIGOR++ consortium. “The VIGOR++ Workshop 2013 will ascertain the state of the art on tools for diagnosing and grading Crohn's disease by involving several leading scientists working on these domains and clinicians and patients who are encouraged to contribute in specifying the functionality and usability of these tools”, he continues.

Intending delegates should register on line at http://www.vigorpp.eu/workshop2013. To be kept up to date about the Workshop outcomes, please join the VIGOR++ Interest Group by emailing ig[at]vigorpp.eu