DATA REGISTRATION AND FUSION FOR CARDIAC APPLICATIONS

ABSTRACT OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATION AuthorName of the dissertationDate of manuscript Date of the dissertationMonograph Article dissertation (summary + original articles)DepartmentLaboratoryField of researchOpponentSupervisorInstructorsAbstractKeywordsUDC Number of pagesISBN (printed) ISBN (pdf)PublisherPrint distributionThe dissertation can be read at http://lib.hut. fi/Diss/2003/isbn951226515X/T imo Juhani MakelaD ata registration and fusion for cardiac applicationsJanuary 27, 2003 M ay 28, 2003Department of Engineering Physics and MathematicsLaboratory of Biomedical EngineeringM edical image processingP rof. Nicholas Ayache (INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, France) P rof. Toivo Katila (Helsinki University Of Technology)D . Sc. (Tech.) Outi Sipila (HUCH), Dr. Isabelle Magnin and Dr. Patrick Clarysse (INSA Lyon)T he registration and fusion of information from multiple cardiac image modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), X-ray computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) has been of increasing interest to the medical community as tools for furthering physiological understanding and for diagnostic of ischemic heart diseases. Ischemic heart diseases and their consequence, myocardial infarct, are the leading cause of mortality in industrial countries. In cardiac image registration and data fusion, the combin a-tion of structural information from MR images and functional information from PET and SPECT is of special interest inthe estimation of myocardial function and viability. Cardiac image registration is a more complex problem than brain ima ge registration. The non-rigid motion of the heart and the thorax structures introduce additional difficulties in registration.In this thesis the goal was develop methods for cardiac data registration and fusion. A rigid registration method was developed to register cardiac MR and PET images. The method was based on the registration of the segmented thorax structures from MR and PET transmission images. The thorax structures were segmented from images using deformable m odels. A MR short axis registration with PET emission image was also derived. The rigid registration method was evaluated using simulated images and clinical MR and PET images from ten patients with multivessel coronary arterydiseases. Also an elastic registration method was developed to register intra-patient cardiac MR and PET images and inter-patient head MR images. In the elastic registration method, a combination of mutual information, gradient information and smoothness of transformation was used to guide the deformation of one image towards another image.A n approach for the creation of 3-D functional maps of the heart was also developed. An individualized anatomical heart m odel was extracted from the MR images. A rigid registration of anatomical MR images and PET metabolic images was carried out using surface based registration, and the registration of MR images with magnetocardiography (MCG) data using external markers.The method resulted in a 3-D anatomical and functional model of the heart that included structural information from the MRI and functional information from the PET and MCG. Different error sources in the registration m ethod of the MR images and MCG data was also evaluated in this thesis. The results of the rigid MR-PET registration m ethod were also used in the comparison of multimodality MR imaging methods to PET. medical image processing, cardiac image registration, data fusion, MR, PET, MCG, visualization616.12:616-073:004.92 108951-22-6514-1 951-22-6515-XHelsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering