The article introduces the JMI Special Issue Celebrating 50 Years of SPIE Medical Imaging.

The history of SPIE Medical Imaging and the legacy of its founders are part of our scientific heritage.

As SPIE Medical Imaging celebrates its 50th anniversary, we reflect on the history of the Image Perception, Observer Performance, and Technology Assessment Conference and its importance within the SPIE Medical Imaging Symposium and the greater medical imaging community.

The term “digital pathology” (DP) broadly refers to the process of digitizing glass whole-slide images (WSIs) using a digital whole-slide scanner as these WSIs are also used to render a diagnosis. Artificial intelligence (AI), on the other hand, is broadly defined as the application of machine-based algorithms to make a prediction, just like an intelligent human who has access to the necessary knowledge to make said prediction. Deep learning is a specific type of AI that has become very popular for the analysis and interpretation of DP images over the last decade because of the recent increase in computational power and advancements in whole-slide scanning. AI-enabled DP analysis of routine hematoxylin and eosin–stained tissues has shown increasing utility in characterizing complex tissue architecture to render disease diagnoses, prognoses, and predicting therapeutic response. A PubMed search for “digital pathology” yielded 310 hits in articles published in 2020; for those published in 2010, the same search yielded only 12 hits. The Digital Pathology Conference was initiated in 2011 by the authors (Drs. Madabhushi and Gurcan), two early pioneers in computational pathology, in anticipation of the expected explosion of research and clinical interest in this space.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the SPIE Medical Imaging meetings, I present photographs taken over the last three decades, selected with the goal of highlighting the enthusiasm and energy of the participants, which has led to the ongoing success of these meetings. Links are given to access complete albums for individual meetings.

For 50 years now, SPIE Medical Imaging (MI) conferences have been the premier forum for disseminating and sharing new ideas, technologies, and concepts on the physics of MI. Our overarching objective is to demonstrate and highlight the major trajectories of imaging physics and how they are informed by the community and science present and presented at SPIE MI conferences from its inception to now. These contributions range from the development of image science, image quality metrology, and image reconstruction to digital x-ray detectors that have revolutionized MI modalities including radiography, mammography, fluoroscopy, tomosynthesis, and computed tomography (CT). Recent advances in detector technology such as photon-counting detectors continue to enable new capabilities in MI. As we celebrate the past 50 years, we are also excited about what the next 50 years of SPIE MI will bring to the physics of MI.

Purpose: Among the conferences comprising the Medical Imaging Symposium is the MI104 conference currently titled Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling, although its name has evolved through at least nine iterations over the last 30 years. Here, we discuss the important role that this forum has presented for researchers in the field during this time.

Approach: The origins of the conference are traced from its roots in Image Capture and Display in the late 1980s, and some of the major themes for which the conference and its proceedings have provided a valuable forum are highlighted.

Results: These major themes include image display/visualization, surgical tracking/navigation, surgical robotics, interventional imaging, image registration, and modeling. Exceptional work from the conference is highlighted by summarizing keynote lectures, the top 50 most downloaded proceedings papers over the last 30 years, the most downloaded paper each year, and the papers earning student paper and young scientist awards.

Conclusions: Looking forward and considering the burgeoning technologies, algorithms, and markets related to image-guided and robot-assisted interventions, we anticipate growth and ever increasing quality of the conference as well as increased interaction with sister conferences within the symposium.

Purpose: To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first SPIE Medical Imaging meeting, we highlight some of the important publications published in the conference proceedings.

Approach: We determined the top cited and downloaded papers. We also asked members of the editorial board of the Journal of Medical Imaging to select their favorite papers.

Results: There was very little overlap between the three methods of highlighting papers. The downloads were mostly recent papers, whereas the favorite papers were mostly older papers.

Conclusions: The three different methods combined provide an overview of the highlights of the papers published in the SPIE Medical Imaging conference proceedings over the last 50 years.

The SPIE Computer-Aided Diagnosis conference has been held for 16 consecutive years at the annual SPIE Medical Imaging symposium. The conference remains vibrant, with a core group of submitters as well as new submitters and attendees each year. Recent developments include a marked shift in submissions relating to the artificial intelligence revolution in medical image analysis. This review describes the topics and trends observed in research presented at the Computer-Aided Diagnosis conference as part of the 50th-anniversary celebration of SPIE Medical Imaging.

Image processing has contributed greatly to the clinical applications of medical imaging. Many of the major developments have been stimulated by and reported at the Image Processing (IP) conference held annually as part of the SPIE Medical Imaging meeting. The evolution, focus, and impact of the IP conference is reviewed.

To commemorate the SPIE Medical Imaging 50th anniversary, this article provides a brief review of the Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) and Informatics conferences. Important topics and advances, contributing researchers from both academia and industry, and key papers are noted.