diff --git a/Modules/Core/include/mitkLexicalCast.h b/Modules/Core/include/mitkLexicalCast.h
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..65829242a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Modules/Core/include/mitkLexicalCast.h
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+/*===================================================================
+
+The Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit (MITK)
+
+Copyright (c) German Cancer Research Center,
+Division of Medical and Biological Informatics.
+All rights reserved.
+
+This software is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without
+even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR
+A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+See LICENSE.txt or http://www.mitk.org for details.
+
+===================================================================*/
+
+#ifndef mitkLexicalCast_h
+#define mitkLexicalCast_h
+
+#include <boost/lexical_cast.hpp>
+
+namespace mitk
+{
+  template <typename Target>
+  inline Target lexical_cast(const std::string &arg)
+  {
+    Target result = Target();
+
+    // Let Boost try to do the lexical cast, which will most probably succeed!
+    if (!boost::conversion::detail::try_lexical_convert(arg, result))
+    {
+      // Fallback to our own conversion using std::istringstream. This happens with
+      // Apple LLVM version 9.1.0 (clang-902.0.39.1) on darwin17.5.0 and very small
+      // floating point numbers like 0.2225e-307.
+      std::istringstream stream(arg);
+      stream.exceptions(std::ios::badbit);
+
+      try
+      {
+        stream.unsetf(std::ios::skipws);
+        stream.precision(boost::detail::lcast_get_precision<Target>());
+        stream >> result;
+      }
+      catch (const std::ios_base::failure &)
+      {
+        boost::conversion::detail::throw_bad_cast<std::string, Target>();
+      }
+    }
+
+    return result;
+  }
+}
+
+namespace boost
+{
+  template <>
+  inline float lexical_cast<float, std::string>(const std::string &arg)
+  {
+    return mitk::lexical_cast<float>(arg);
+  }
+
+  template <>
+  inline double lexical_cast<double, std::string>(const std::string &arg)
+  {
+    return mitk::lexical_cast<double>(arg);
+  }
+
+  template <>
+  inline long double lexical_cast<long double, std::string>(const std::string &arg)
+  {
+    return mitk::lexical_cast<long double>(arg);
+  }
+}
+
+#endif