Toward a standard ontology of surgical process models

Bernard Gibaud (1) , Germain Forestier (2) , Carolin Feldmann (3) , Giancarlo Ferrigno (4) , Paulo Gonçalves (5, 6) , Tamás Haidegger (7) , Chantal Julliard (1, 8) , Darko Katić (9) , Hannes Kenngott (10) , Lena Maier-Hein (3) , Keno März (3) , Elena de Momi (4) , Dénes Ákos Nagy (7) , Hirenkumar Nakawala (4) , Juliane Neumann (11) , Thomas Neumuth (11) , Javier Rojas Balderrama (1, 12) , Stefanie Speidel (13) , Martin Wagner (10) , Pierre Jannin (1)

1 LTSI - Laboratoire Traitement du Signal et de l'Image
2 MIPS - Modélisation, Intelligence, Processus et Système
3 DKFZ - German Cancer Research Center - Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum [Heidelberg]
4 POLIMI - Politecnico di Milano [Milan]
5 Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco - Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco
6 IDMEC - Instituto de Engenharia Mecânica [Lisboa]
7 Óbuda University [Budapest]
8 DEXTER - Robotique médicale et mécanismes parallèles
9 KIT - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
10 University of Heidelberg, Medical Faculty
11 ICCAS - Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery
12 MYRIADS - Design and Implementation of Autonomous Distributed Systems
13 NCT - National Center for Tumor Diseases [Dresden]

Purpose : The development of common ontologies has recently been identified as one of the key challenges in the emerging field of surgical data science (SDS). However, past and existing initiatives in the domain of surgery have mainly been focussing on individual groups and failed to achieve widespread international acceptance by the research community. To address this challenge, the authors of this paper launched a European initiative—OntoSPM Collaborative Action—with the goal of establishing a framework for joint development of ontologies in the field of SDS. This manuscript summarizes the goals and the current status of the international initiative.
Methods : A workshop was organized in 2016, gathering the main European research groups having experience in developing and using ontologies in this domain. It led to the conclusion that a common ontology for surgical process models (SPM) was absolutely needed, and that the existing OntoSPM ontology could provide a good starting point toward the collaborative design and promotion of common, standard ontologies on SPM.
Results : The workshop led to the OntoSPM Collaborative Action—launched in mid-2016—with the objective to develop, maintain and promote the use of common ontologies of SPM relevant to the whole domain of SDS. The fundamental concept, the architecture, the management and curation of the common ontology have been established, making it ready for wider public use.
Conclusion : The OntoSPM Collaborative Action has been in operation for 24 months, with a growing dedicated membership. Its main result is a modular ontology, undergoing constant updates and extensions, based on the experts’ suggestions. It remains an open collaborative action, which always welcomes new contributors and applications.

Domaines: Ingénierie biomédicale

Bernard Gibaud, Germain Forestier, Carolin Feldmann, Giancarlo Ferrigno, Paulo Gonçalves, et al.. Toward a standard ontology of surgical process models. International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, 2018, 13 (9), pp.1397-1408. ⟨10.1007/s11548-018-1824-5⟩. ⟨hal-01862533v1⟩