EAES Virtual Wintermeeting 2021

Introduction

In the last decade, AI research has made extraordinary progress in solving problems that have remained open for a long time: understanding images, understanding and translating text and speech, autonomous and decision support systems; this above all thanks to increasingly sophisticated models of learning from large masses of data (big data), in combination with continuous advances in related technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), mobile computing, machine intelligence.

AI is rapidly becoming an integral part of our daily life through smartphones, wearables, digital and robotic personal assistants, vehicles with increasing degrees of autonomy, smart cities, industry 4.0. Faced with these great opportunities, there are limitations to be overcome and risks to be avoided or mitigated. The goal to strive for, strongly desired by the European institutions, is a trustworthy and sustainable AI, aimed at the benefit of the human person at both the individual and social level. It is, therefore, important to develop advanced AI systems that incorporate European ethical values, that are able to understand humans and adapt to real environments, interact in complex social situations, and ultimately expand human capabilities, especially to cognitive level. This is a frontier on which Europe can excel, in the awareness of the many challenges still open.

To seize the opportunities and overcome limitations, it is therefore necessary to operate on two lines in synergy: on the one hand, it is essential to innovate, experiment and evaluate the application of AI in strategic production, scientific and social sectors, favoring inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches. On the other hand, research efforts must be intensified to address the open scientific and technological problems of AI systems, at the level of perception, learning, reasoning and interaction.

Welcome to the EAES Wintermeeting 2021 where outstanding speakers from different continents will give a demonstration of the state of the art of AI applied to robotics and imaging in surgery, what we call Surgery 4.0! It will be just amazing…

Prof. Alberto Arezzo
Chair EAES Technology committee

Programme
Session 1. AI & surgery: practice and future
Chairs: Chen Sagiv (Israel), George Mylonas (UK), Ludovica Baldari (Italy)

08.30 – 08.45      AI 4 dummies – Toby Collins (France)
08.45 – 09.00      Computer Aided Diagnosis for endoscopy and surgery – Manish Chand (UK)
09.00 – 09.15     Surgical AI: where does it help me? The intraoperative Black Box – Marlies Schijven (The Netherlands)
09.15 – 09.30      Machine learning & Learning machines – Felix Nickel (Germany)
09.30 – 09.45      State of the art in automation for robotic surgery – Fanny Ficuciello (Italy)
09.45 – 10.00      Ethics and AI – Young-Woo Kim (Korea)

10.00 – 10.30      Coffee break

Session 2. Re-live surgery to demonstrate & discuss the use of technology in the OR
Chairs: Felix Nickel (Germany), Wanda Petz (Italy)

10.30 – 10.50      Da Vinci SP – John Marks (USA)
10.50 – 11.10      CMR / Dexter – Luigi Boni (Italy)
11.10 – 11.30      The use of Hand-X in laparoscopic suturing – Salvador Morales Conde (Spain)

Session 3. Seeing the invisible and Touching the Untouchable
Chairs: Francisco Sánchez-Margallo (Spain), Hans Fuchs (Germany), Fanny Ficuciello (Italy)

11.30 – 11.45      Situational awareness in the operating room – Marlies Schijven (The Netherlands)
11.45 – 12.00      Touchless interaction in the OR – George Mylonas (UK)
12.00 – 12.15      Gesture recognition – Chen Sagiv (Israel)
12.15 – 12.30      New imaging techniques for staging – Stefania Marconi (Italy)

12.30 – 12.45      Going green in the OR: how technology may help – Andrea Pietrabissa (Italy)