This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine in Europe, AIME 2001, held in Cascais, Portugal in July 2001. The 31 revised full papers presented together with 30 posters and two invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 79 submissions. Among the topics addressed in their context on medical information processing are knowledge management, machine learning, data mining, decision support systems, temporal reasoning, case-based reasoning, planning and scheduling, natural language processing, computer vision, image and signal interpretation, intelligent agents, telemedicine, careflow systems, and cognitive modeling.

The European Societies for Arti cial Intelligence in Medicine (AIME) and M- ical Decision Making (ESMDM) were both established in 1986.A major activity of both these societies has been a series of international conferences, held bi- nially over the last 13 years. In the year 1999 the two societies organized a joint conference for the r st time. It took place from June 20{24th, 1999 in Aalborg, Denmark. This \Joint European Conference on Arti cial Intelligence in Medicine and Medical Decision Making (AIMDM'99)" was the seventh conference for each of thetwosocieties.ThisconferencefollowstheAIMEconferencesheldinMarseilles (1987), London (1989), Maastricht (1991), Munich (1993), Pavia (1995), and Grenoble(1997).PreviousESMDMconferenceshavebeenheldinLeiden(1986), Copenhagen (1988), Glasgow (1990), Marburg (1992), Lille (1994), and Torino (1996). The AIMDM conference is the major forum for the presentation and d- cussion of new ideas in the areas of Arti cial Intelligence and Medical Decision Making in Medicine. This ful lls the aims of both societies. The aims of AIME are to foster fundamental and applied researchin the applicationof Arti cial - telligence (AI) techniques to medicalcareandmedicalresearch, andto providea forum for reporting signi cant results achieved. ESMDM's aims are to promote research and training in medical decision-making, and to provide a forum for circulating ideas and programs of related interest. In the AIMDM'99 conference announcement, authors were encouraged to submit original contributions to the development of theory, techniques, and - plications of both AI in medicine (AIM) and medical decision making (MDM).