CARS Preview 2018

Rapid Prototyping of Image-Guided Therapy Applications on Open Source Software Platform Gabor Fichtinger Gabor Fichtinger , along with colleagues from Harvard University and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid , is presenting a tutorial at the upcoming CARS conference in Berlin on rapid prototyping clinical applications for computer- assisted surgeries and interventions using free open source software platforms. Open source software platforms allow to create a complete and functioning pre- clinical and clinical test beds out of existing components with minimal engineering and software overhead, so that researchers can try out their technical or clinical hypotheses faster and better . These platforms also guarantee accuracy and precision, so that one can use them as ground truth, taking away the question of the veracity of the technical measurements when analyzing the clinical data produced. “ Following a brief summary of some of the existing platforms by expert guest speakers - Fichtinger explains - the tutorial will provide hands-on training in building a computer-assisted neurosurgical application on the 3D Slicer free open source software platform . The attendees will create an image-guided brain cancer surgery navigation system with using real-time ultrasound imaging to monitor brain shift during surgery, and they will try out the resulting system in the classroom on a plastic/silicon head model. ” Fichtinger believes that often scientific work is not translated into the real world or it is translated in countless different ways. Things work differently when “0.01%, that’s where your novel science is, that’s where your invention is and that’s where your Nobel Prize is going to be…” 18 CARS 2018 Preview Tutorial Gabor Fichtinger is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Computer- Integrated Surgery at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada.