Patent Publication Number: US-2021181282-A1

Title: Method and system for motion compensation in hybrid pet-mr imaging

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION 
     The present application is based on and claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/947,300 filed Dec. 12, 2019, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     This disclosure generally relates to hybrid PET-MR imaging systems and methods, and more particularly to methods and systems for motion compensation in hybrid PET-MR imaging. 
     In many cases in medical imaging, motion is unavoidable. For example, in diagnostic PET, acquisition duration is typically about two minutes per bed position. Respiratory motion in patients during PET acquisition leads to blurring in the resulting (static) PET images. This may in turn lead to lower detectability of tumors, inaccurate SUV calculation, and incorrect tumor planning volumes in radiation therapy. The first step in correcting for movement is to gate the data into different motion states. The gating is typically based on information from external devices, such as the chest position for respiratory movement, or an ECG signal for cardiac gating. Various external devices are used for obtaining the gating signal, which are typically devices that have to be placed on the patient such as a respiration monitor (e.g. chest band) and/or an ECG monitor (ECG electrodes). 
     SUMMARY 
     This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in limiting the scope of the claimed subject matter. 
     In one embodiment, a method of controlling and processing data from a hybrid PET-MR imaging system includes acquiring a positron emission tomographic (PET) dataset over a time period, wherein the PET dataset is affected by a quasi-periodic motion of the patient, and acquiring magnetic resonance (MR) data during the time period such that the acquisition time of the MR data relative to the PET dataset is known. A characteristic of the patient motion is then determined based on the PET dataset and the MR data is processed based on the characteristic of patient motion. 
     One embodiment of a hybrid PET-MR imaging system includes a PET imaging portion configured to generate PET data to image a patient and an MR imaging portion configured to generate MR data to image the patient. A controller is configured to acquire a PET dataset over a time period from the PET imaging portion, wherein the PET dataset is affected by a quasi-periodic motion of the patient, and acquire MR data with the MR imaging portion during the time period such that the acquisition time of the MR data relative to the PET dataset is known. The controller is further configured to determine a characteristic of patient motion based on the PET dataset and to process the MR data based on the characteristic of patient motion. 
     Various other features, objects, and advantages of the invention will be made apparent from the following description taken together with the drawings. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The present disclosure is described with reference to the following Figures. 
         FIG. 1  is a diagram of an embodiment of a PET-MR imager and a system for determining a gating signal for both the PET and MR modalities. 
         FIG. 2  is a flow chart illustrating one embodiment of a method of gating PET and MR data. 
         FIG. 3  is a flow chart illustrating another embodiment of a method of gating PET and MR data. 
         FIGS. 4A-4C  schematically represent embodiments of simultaneous PET and MR data acquisition. 
         FIG. 5  depicts an exemplary gating signal which is a respiration waveform. 
         FIG. 6  schematically depicts steps for processing MR data based on a gating signal derived from the PET dataset. 
         FIG. 7  is a flow chart illustrating another embodiment of motion extraction and compensation for simultaneously acquired PET and MR data. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Embodiments of methods and systems for motion detection and compensation in dual-modality PET-MR imagers are disclosed. PET-MR imagers perform both positron emission tomographic (PET) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging modalities in one system. Hybrid PET-MR imaging systems simultaneously acquire PET and MR data. Each of the PET data and the MR data must be motion corrected, such as gated, to compensate for and reduce the effects of quasi-periodic motion of the patient, including respiratory motion and cardiac motion. 
     The inventors have recognized that current approaches for motion compensation in PET data and MR data from hybrid PET-MR imaging systems are inadequate. Motion compensation is a long-standing problem for nearly all imaging modalities, and particularly for PET and MR modalities. Uncompensated motion negatively affects the quality of both PET and MR images, and thus many techniques have been derived for “gating” or otherwise motion correcting the data—e.g., to time the data with the quasi-periodic motion of the patient—and for other patient motion detection and correction. Various gating and other motion compensation techniques are available for gating each of the PET and MR data; however, the inventors have recognized that currently available techniques for motion compensation for simultaneously-acquired PET and MR data are inadequate. 
     Current motion compensation techniques utilized for hybrid PET-MR imaging systems are either a) hardware based, b) MR-data based, c) based on a combination of MR data and PET data, or d) involve separately gating or motion correction MR data and PET data utilizing disparate techniques. Hardware solutions for gating involve the use of external hardware, such as a respiratory bellows for respiratory gating and/or an ECG monitoring system for cardiac gating. These systems require time consuming set up and yield additional points of failure for the imaging modality. For example, utilizing a respirator bellows and/or ECG monitoring requires additional set up time and may require some effort on the part of the medical professional to acquire physiological data of sufficient quality to perform reliable gating. Moreover, scanning may be interrupted if the external physiological monitoring is interrupted for any reason. 
     Available data-driven methods for gating either involve some form of MR motion detection or involve separately gating or otherwise separately motion compensating PET data from MR data. Data-driven motion compensation is a class of techniques used to identify respiratory and/or cardiac motion based on the acquired data from the imaging modality. In currently-available data driven motion detection for PET-MR system, the acquired MR data is utilized for motion correcting the MR dataset and/or the acquired PET data is analyzed for motion correcting the PET dataset. Thus, separate motion characteristics are used for motion compensation in MR and PET, and such separate motion signals are derived by different means. Data-driven PET motion correction methods are typically retrospective, meaning that motion information is deciphered after data acquisition and the correction happens in post-processing. By contrast, many MR motion detection and correction methods are prospective and occur simultaneously with or prior to MR data acquisition (sometimes referred to as “triggering”), though some retrospective MR gating and other motion compensation methods are currently available. 
     The inventors have recognized that approaches providing separate motion correction for PET data and MR data yield uncoordinated PET and MR images, and the lack of coordination between the resulting images from the separate modalities that can hamper the effectiveness of the joint imaging. Additionally, separately detecting and correcting motion in both modalities requires a significant amount of processing power that is dedicated to the two separate processes. For example, where data-driven MR gating methods are used, the gating often occupies scan time and thus increases the amount of time required for MR data acquisition and also requires additional work for the technologist operating the system. 
     In view of the shortcomings of prior art solutions and problems in the relevant art recognized by the inventors, the disclosed system and method were developed that utilize only PET-data driven motion analysis methods for retrospective motion compensation of both the PET data and the MR data. Namely, one or more characteristics of patient motion are extracted from the PET raw data and applied for processing both the PET data and the MR data. The motion characteristics may be, for example, described by a gating signal or by motion vectors indicating optical flow motion. The disclosed methods and systems provide a deviceless approach for motion detection and correction for both modalities with a single set of motion characteristics, such as a single gating signal, thereby maintaining alignment of the images while avoiding the use of external hardware and wasted MR scan time that may occur with MR-data-driven techniques using navigators or interleaved sequences. Since the same motion characteristic is utilized for both PET and MR modalities, image alignment across all gates is ensured, as is consistency between all MR image sequences because the motion information is consistent. The corrected images generated as described herein, including the gated MRI and the gated PET images, can be processed into a single motion-corrected image with increased signal to noise ratio and lesion detectability. 
       FIG. 1  is a diagram of a hybrid PET-MR imaging system  100  in accordance with an exemplary embodiment. As is well-known in the relevant art, the PET-MR imaging system  100  includes a patient bed  102  receivable by the two imaging modalities, including the PET imaging portion  104  and the MR imaging portion  116 . The bed  102  is configured to occupy a plurality of bed positions to facilitate imaging. Each imaging portion  104 ,  116 , or imaging modality, generates an image dataset, wherein the PET imaging portion  104  generates PET data  106  and the MR imaging portion  116  generates MR data  107 . A motion correction controller  108  is communicatively coupled to the imaging modalities  104  and  116  and configured to receive the raw data  106  and  107  from each and to generate corresponding motion corrected datasets  124  and  125 . The motion corrected datasets  124  and  125  may be displayed on the display device  126  communicatively coupled to the computing system operating as the motion correction controller  108 . For example, the motion segmented, or gated, PET data  124  may be displayed as a PET image and the motion gated MR data  125  displayed as an MR image, and the images may be displayed in a time-correlated manner. Alternatively or additionally, the gated PET data  124  and gated MR data  125  may be processed into a single image, which may be displayed on the display  126 . 
     The motion correction controller  108  is configured to generate at least one motion characteristic  113  that describes patient motion and is used for motion correction of the PET and MR data so as to produce the corrected PET data  124  and the gated MR data  125 . As described herein, the motion characteristic  113  is generated based on the PET data based on any of various data-driven techniques for deriving quasi-periodic motion information based on the acquired PET data. The motion characteristic  113  may describe respiratory motion or cardiac motion, and in certain embodiments two sets of motion characteristics may be generated, one describing cardiac motion and the other describing respiratory motion for the patient. 
     The motion correction controller  108  may include a pre-processor module  110 , a PET motion signal analyzer module  112  that derives the motion characteristics from the PET data, and a retrospective gating module  114  that utilizes the motion characteristic  113  that is a gating signal  13  ( FIG. 5 ) to generate motion corrected data  124 ,  125 . In other embodiments, module  114  may instead perform a different type of motion correction, such as an optical flow module that retrospectively performs optical flow motion extraction. The motion correction controller  108  further includes a processing system utilizing a processor  118  and a storage system comprising memory  120  for storing software, including the software modules  110 ,  112 ,  114 , and data generated thereby. The pre-processor module  110  is configured to receive the PET and MR datasets  106  and  107  and correlate and/or organize the raw data from the modalities as appropriate. In certain embodiments, the pre-processor module  110  may be configured to correspond the raw datasets  106  and  107  to a bed position of the patient bed  102  and/or correlate the two datasets  106  and  107  to one another based on acquisition time. For instance, the PET-MR system may have eight bed positions and each raw dataset  106 ,  107  may be correlated to one of the eight bed positions. In other embodiments, a different number of bed positions may be utilized. The raw PET data  106  and raw MR data  107  may be acquired using a common reference clock, and thus may be easily correlated to bed position and/or to one another based on acquisition time. Alternatively, reference timing data may be generated for one or both of the imaging modalities  104 ,  106  that may allow correlation of the raw PET data  106  and the raw MR data  107 . 
     The PET motion signal analyzer module  112  is executed by the processor  118  to extract motion information from the PET data in order to determine the motion characteristic  113 . The retrospective gating module  114  is then executed to process the raw PET data  106  based on the motion characteristic  113  in order to generate the motion corrected PET data  124 , which may be gated PET raw data. The retrospective gating module  114  also processes the raw MR data  107  based on the motion characteristic  113  to generate the motion corrected MR data  125 , which may be gated MR raw data. The data is then utilized to reconstruct PET images and MR images, which may then be visually correlated and/or combined and presented on the display  126  to facilitate diagnostics and/or patient treatment. 
       FIGS. 2 and 3  provide flow charts demonstrating exemplary methods  200  of processing data from hybrid PET-MR systems to generate gated datasets.  FIGS. 6 and 7  discussed below also disclose additional exemplary embodiments of method for motion compensation for hybrid PET-MR systems. PET data is acquired at step  204  and MR data is acquired at step  216 . The PET and MR data are acquired simultaneously and are time-correlated such that the relative time of the PET raw data and the MR raw data is known. This can be accomplished by saving the time of acquired PET data and the MR readouts with a common reference clock. Steps are then executed at step  212  to extract motion information from the PET raw data in order to generate the gating signal. Various methods of retrospectively extracting motion from PET data may be utilized and are known in the relevant art, examples of which are described herein. The motion characteristic  113  is then utilized to gate the PET data at step  214   a  and gate the MR data at step  214   b . PET images are reconstructed at step  218   a  based on the gated PET data, and MR images are reconstructed at step  218   b  based on the gate MR data. 
     In one embodiment, PET data acquisition is performed continuously for a single bed position, whereas the MR data is acquired over multiple MR pulse sequences that are performed at that bed position and are time correlated with the acquired PET data.  FIG. 4  schematically illustrates this concept, where PET acquisition is performed continuously for the single bed position and MR data is acquired over multiple sequential pulse sequences performed at the bed position. In one embodiment, the multiple MR pulse sequences are identical, such that all acquisition settings for each pulse are identical. For example, settings such as sequence, repetition time, echo time, flip angle, echo train length, matrix size, slice number and thickness, field of view, and other PSD settings may be identical between MR pulses.  FIG. 4A  demonstrates a simple case of repeating the same MR acquisition multiple times. The sequences are acquired repeatedly to allow for retrospective gating of the MR data based on the motion determined from the PET data. 
     In other embodiments, data processing can be performed for non-identical post sequences, such as where each range of the MR raw data space (k-space) could be correlated and analyzed across all pulses. For example, the acquisition order could also be designed for motion, such as by applying golden angle acquisition. In still other embodiments, pseudo-random sampling may be utilized with a compressed-sensing-based reconstruction algorithm.  FIG. 4B  schematically demonstrates such an embodiment, where MR data acquisition is performed continuously and simultaneously with the PET data acquisition, with continuous pseudo-random sampling of k-space for a compressed sensing approach to motion correction. These types of acquisitions are designed for reconstruction on a subset of the data (e.g., for gating or other motion correction reconstruction methods). Their acquisition time is longer due to over-sampling portions of k-space. As described above, in all such embodiments the relative time of the PET acquisition and the MRI raw data must be known to enable the retrospective gating across modalities. 
     A variety of methods can be used to extract motion from the short time durations of PET data, such as principal component analysis (PCA), independent component analysis (ICA), respiratory phase analysis, amplitude-based gating, quiescent gating, or others. Typically the PET data is divided into short time durations, which are each processed and compared to derive the motion information. In certain examples, the PET raw data is time divided and processed to extract motion information. In other embodiments, motion information may be extracted from image-space, where short-duration image volumes are reconstructed, as represented at step  211 . 
     Each short-duration PET dataset is analyzed to identify a plurality of motion states, such as respiratory motion states or cardiac motion states. The motion states may be described or classified in various ways to describe the quasi-periodic motion. The motion states are then combined to generate the gating signal, which describes the quasi-periodic motion, such as the respiratory motion or the cardiac motion, over time.  FIG. 3  represents an embodiment where PCA is utilized to identify the gating signal based on the PET data. 
     In one embodiment, PCA is utilized to generate components containing motion information describing cardiac or respiratory motion of the patient. One example of gating using PCA to extract motion information from PET data is described at Thielemans, Kris, et al. “Deviceless gating for PET/CT using PCA.” IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record. IEEE, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. Other PET-data driven gating methods that may be utilized, such as those described at G. Klein, B. Reutter, E. Botvinick, T. Budinger, and R. Huesman, “Finescale motion detection using intrinsic list mode PET information,” in Workshop on Mathematical Methods in Biomedical Image Analysis, Los Alamitos, Calif., USA, 2001, vol. 0, pp. 71-78, IEEE Comput. Soc.; Ralph A. Bundschuh, Axel Martinez-Moeller, Markus Essler, MarfaJose J. Martinez, Stephan G. Nekolla, Sibylle I. Ziegler, and Markus Schwaiger, “Postacquisition detection of tumor motion in the lung and upper abdomen using list-mode PET data: a feasibility study,” Journal of nuclear medicine: official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine, vol. 48, no. 5, pp. 758-763, May 2007.; Florian Blither, Mohammad Dawood, Lars Stegger, Frank Wlibbeling, Michael Schafers, Otrnar Schober; Klaus P. Schlifers, “List ModeDriven Cardiac and Respiratory Gating in PET,” J Nucl Med, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 674-681, May 2009.; and Jianfeng He, Graeme, O&#39;Keefe, Sylvia, Gong, Gareth Jones, Tim Saunder, Andrew M. Scott, and Moshi Geso, “A Novel Method for Respiratory Motion Gated With Geometric Sensitivity of the Scanner in 3D PET,” IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 2557-2565, October 2008, which are each incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. Another method for extracting motion date information for short-duration PET data is described at U.S. Pat. No. 9,471,976, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. 
       FIG. 5  depicts exemplary gating signals, which in this example describe respiratory motion of the patient but in other examples could describe cardiac motion. In one embodiment, the gating signal is a respiratory waveform  13   a.    
     The respiratory waveform  13   a  can be used for amplitude-based gating in which gated MR image data is filled with MR raw data views corresponding to the closest waveform amplitude. MR raw data contains many data readouts, sometimes called “views.” These views correspond to the MR raw data space (k-space). For each view in a particular gate section or bin, which in the case of the amplitude-based gating would be an amplitude range, the MR raw data is processed to find the corresponding k-space view from the multiple MR acquisitions that has the closest amplitude range to the target bin. For example, one period of the respiration waveform may be divided into a preset number of target bins, such as eight target bins, where one or more of the bins may correspond with the amplitude at peak inspiration and one or more different bins may correspond with the quiescent period q, which is the period of relative inactivity between the end of exhalation and the start of the next inhalation. 
     A second exemplary gating signal is also shown at  FIG. 5  and represents respiratory motion in terms of respiratory cycle phase, shown as the exemplary respiratory phase signal  13   b . In this example, the respiratory phase gating signal  13   b  is configured such that 0% is assigned to peak inspiration and increases across the respiratory cycle to 100% at the last measurement immediately prior to the next peak. In the depicted example, the respiratory cycle restarts at each peak, where the respiratory phase signal  13   b , which is the exemplary gating signal, resets to 0% phase. 
     Phase-based gating using the respiratory phase signal  13   b  is conducted similarly to the amplitude-base gating described above. For each view in a gated target phase, or bin, the gating method is conducted to locate the corresponding k-space view from the multiple acquisitions that has the closest phase percent to the target phase for the particular bin. Thus, the respiratory phase, between 0% and 100%, is divided into target phase bins, such as each representing 12.5% phase sections of the respiratory cycle (i.e., the phase is divided into eight bins). 
     This concept is illustrated at  FIG. 6  where a single target phase, or bin, of the gated MR data is comprised of views from multiple different MR acquisitions acquired over each of multiple sequential pulse sequences. Each view of the dated MR raw data space is filled with one of the views from the multiple MR acquisitions by identifying the MR acquisition that has the nearest phase percent corresponding to the time in which that view was acquired. This means that each MR acquisition will likely contribute in part to a single target phase, or bin, of the gated MR raw data outputted by the retrospective gating module  114  (see  FIG. 1 ). 
     As described above, the gated MR raw data  125  is then utilized to reconstruct MR images or display and analysis by a medical professional. The PET data is also gated using the gating signal  13  (e.g. the respiratory waveform  13   a  or the respiratory phase waveform  13   b ) to generate gated PET raw data. Since the acquired MR data and acquired PET data are gated using the same gating signal  13 , the resulting gated raw datasets will correspond in time and the resulting reconstructed images will also correspond in time. Additionally, multiple MR pulse sequences can be used during a single PET acquisition. Namely, the gating or other motion compensation approach can be applied to multiple different MR pulse sequences within the same PET acquisition. This allows the MR motion-corrected images to be created at a consistent reference position for all images to align.  FIG. 4C  represents three different MR sequences acquired repeatedly for motion correction processing. Each of the sequences would provide motion-corrected images with a common reference position. A common reference frame (or gate) can be applied, allowing alignment between the multiple different MR sequences. A person having ordinary skill in the art will understand in view of the present disclosure that cardiac gating can be conducted similarly as the respiratory example described herein. 
       FIG. 7  is a flow chart illustrating an alternative motion compensation method to gating. Here, the set of motion characteristics is a set of motion vectors  14  describing the patient motion in the PET data. The motion extraction is performed at step  213 ′ to extract optical flow motion from the PET image volumes. The optical flow approach defines a volumetric summary of motion against a reference frame (e.g., the first time point). This is a quantitative measurement of motion because it is in spatial dimensions. This contrasts with gating signals, which represent a qualitative (or relative) expression of motion. For example, existing optical flow approaches may be applied to determine 3D motion vectors throughout the PET image volume as a function of time, relative to an initial start frame. This motion information is then incorporated directly into the PET and MR reconstructions, which are generated at steps  218   a  and  218   b . PET and MR reconstruction with motion vectors is exemplified and described at: Lamare, F., et al. “List-mode-based reconstruction for respiratory motion correction in PET using non-rigid body transformations.” Physics in Medicine &amp; Biology 52.17 (2007): 5187; Chan, Chung, et al. “Non-rigid event-by-event continuous respiratory motion compensated list-mode reconstruction for PET.” IEEE transactions on medical imaging 37.2 (2017): 504-515; Batchelor, P. G., Atkinson, D., Irarrazaval, P., Hill, D. L. G., Hajnal, J., &amp; Larkman, D. (2005); Matrix description of general motion correction applied to multishot images.  Magnetic Resonance in Medicine,  54(5), 1273-1280; and Zaitsev, M., Maclaren, J., &amp; Herbst, M. (2015). Motion artifacts in MRI: a complex problem with many partial solutions.  Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging,  42(4), 887-901. 
     This written description uses examples to disclose the invention, including the best mode, and also to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the invention. Certain terms have been used for brevity, clarity and understanding. No unnecessary limitations are to be inferred therefrom beyond the requirement of the prior art because such terms are used for descriptive purposes only and are intended to be broadly construed. The patentable scope of the invention is defined by the claims, and may include other examples that occur to those skilled in the art. Such other examples are intended to be within the scope of the claims if they have features or structural elements that do not differ from the literal language of the claims, or if they include equivalent features or structural elements with insubstantial differences from the literal languages of the claims.