In the four years of its existence, MICCAI has developed into the premier - nual conference on medical image computing and computer-assisted interv- tion. The single-track conference has an interdisciplinary character, bringing - getherresearchersfromboththenaturalsciencesandvariousmedicaldisciplines. It provides the international forum for developments concerning all aspects of medical image processing and visualization, image-guided and computer-aided techniques, and robot technology in medicine. The strong interest in MICCAI is con?rmed by the large number of subm- sions we received this year, which by far surpassed our expectations. The arrival of the shipload of papers just before the deadlines (one in the European and the otherin theAmericantime zone)wasa particularlyenjoyableexperience,aswas the whole procedure of preparing the scienti?c programme. Both the quantity and quality of the submissions allowed us to compose a volume of high quality papers, which we are sure will contribute to the further development of this exciting ?eld of research. As for the hard numbers, in total 338 submissions were received. Next to full papers, short communications were solicited for works in progress,hardware prototypes, and clinical case studies. Long papers were reviewed by three or four reviewers and short papers by two or three reviewers. The ?nal selection of papers was carried out by the Programme Board. Out of the 246 long papers, 36 were accepted for oral presentation and 100 as full posters. An additional 75 of the long papers, and 47 out of 92 short papers were accepted as short posters.