Showing papers by "Derek L. G. Hill published in 2005"

Matrix description of general motion correction applied to multishot images

Abstract: Motion of an object degrades MR images, as the acquisition is time-dependent, and thus k-space is inconsistently sampled. This causes ghosts. Current motion correction methods make restrictive assumptions on the type of motions, for example, that it is a translation or rotation, and use special properties of k-space for these transformations. Such methods, however, cannot be generalized easily to nonrigid types of motions, and even rotations in multiple shots can be a problem. Here, a method is presented that can handle general nonrigid motion models. A general matrix equation gives the corrupted image from the ideal object. Thus, inversion of this system allows us to get the ideal image from the corrupted one. This inversion is possible by efficient methods mixing Fourier transforms with the conjugate gradient method. A faster but empirical inversion is discussed as well as methods to determine the motion. Simulated three-dimensional affine data and two-dimensional pulsation data and in vivo nonrigid data are used for demonstration. All examples are multishot images where the object moves between shots. The results indicate that it is now possible to correct for nonrigid types of motion that are representative of many types of patient motion, although computation times remain an issue.

A system for real-time XMR guided cardiovascular intervention

Abstract: The hybrid magnetic resonance (MR)/X-ray suite (XMR) is a recently introduced imaging solution that provides new possibilities for guidance of cardiovascular catheterization procedures. We have previously described and validated a technique based on optical tracking to register MR and X-ray images obtained from the sliding table XMR configuration. The aim of our recent work was to extend our technique by providing an improved calibration stage, real-time guidance during cardiovascular catheterization procedures, and further off-line analysis for mapping cardiac electrical data to patient anatomy. Specially designed optical trackers and a dedicated calibration object have resulted in a single calibration step that can be efficiently checked and updated before each procedure. An X-ray distortion model has been implemented that allows for distortion correction for arbitrary c-arm orientations. During procedures, the guidance system provides a real-time combined MR/X-ray image display consisting of live X-ray images with registered recently acquired MR derived anatomy. It is also possible to reconstruct the location of catheters seen during X-ray imaging in the MR derived patient anatomy. We have applied our registration technique to 13 cardiovascular catheterization procedures. Our system has been used for the real-time guidance of ten radiofrequency ablations and one aortic stent implantation. We demonstrate the real-time guidance using two exemplar cases. In a further two cases we show how off-line analysis of registered image data, acquired during electrophysiology study procedures, has been used to map cardiac electrical measurements to patient anatomy for two different types of mapping catheters. The cardiologists that have used the guidance system suggest that real-time XMR guidance could have substantial value in difficult interventional and electrophysiological procedures, potentially reducing procedure time and delivered radiation dose. Also, the ability to map measured electrical data to patient specific anatomy provides improved visualization and a path to investigation of cardiac electromechanical models.

Cardiac function estimation from MRI using a heart model and data assimilation: advances and difficulties

Abstract: In this article, we present a framework to estimate local myocardium contractility using clinical MRI, a heart model and data assimilation. First, we build a generic anatomical model of the ventricles including muscle fibre orientations and anatomical subdivisions. Then, this model is deformed to fit a clinical MRI, using a semi-automatic fuzzy segmentation, an affine registration method and a local deformable biomechanical model. An electromechanical model of the heart is then presented and simulated. Data assimilation makes it possible to estimate local contractility from given displacements. Presented results on adjustment to clinical data and on assimilation with simulated data are very promising. Current work on model calibration and estimation of patient parameters open up possibilities to apply this framework in a clinical environment.

Measurement of total pulmonary arterial compliance using invasive pressure monitoring and MR flow quantification during MR-guided cardiac catheterization

Abstract: Pulmonary hypertensive disease is assessed by quantification of pulmonary vascular resistance. Pulmonary total arterial compliance is also an indicator of pulmonary hypertensive disease. However, because of difficulties in measuring compliance, it is rarely used. We describe a method of measuring pulmonary arterial compliance utilizing magnetic resonance (MR) flow data and invasive pressure measurements. Seventeen patients with suspected pulmonary hypertension or congenital heart disease requiring preoperative assessment underwent MR-guided cardiac catheterization. Invasive manometry was used to measure pulmonary arterial pressure, and phase-contrast MR was used to measure flow at baseline and at 20 ppm nitric oxide (NO). Total arterial compliance was calculated using the pulse pressure method (parameter optimization of the 2-element windkessel model) and the ratio of stroke volume to pulse pressure. There was good agreement between the two estimates of compliance (r = 0.98, P 10% in response to 20 ppm NO. As a population, the increase did not reach statistical significance. There was an inverse relation between compliance and resistance (r = 0.89, P < 0.001) and between compliance and mean pulmonary arterial pressure (r = 0.72, P < 0.001). We have demonstrated the feasibility of quantifying total arterial compliance using an MR method.

Generalised overlap measures for assessment of pairwise and groupwise image registration and segmentation

Abstract: Effective validation techniques are an essential pre-requisite for segmentation and non-rigid registration techniques to enter clinical use. These algorithms can be evaluated by calculating the overlap of corresponding test and gold-standard regions. Common overlap measures compare pairs of binary labels but it is now common for multiple labels to exist and for fractional (partial volume) labels to be used to describe multiple tissue types contributing to a single voxel. Evaluation studies may involve multiple image pairs. In this paper we use results from fuzzy set theory and fuzzy morphology to extend the definitions of existing overlap measures to accommodate multiple fractional labels. Simple formulas are provided which define single figures of merit to quantify the total overlap for ensembles of pairwise or groupwise label comparisons. A quantitative link between overlap and registration error is established by defining the overlap tolerance. Experiments are performed on publicly available labeled brain data to demonstrate the new measures in a comparison of pairwise and groupwise registration.

Electromagnetic field exposure limitation and the future of MRI

Abstract: Division of Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, Guy’s Campus, London SE1 9RT, UK, Department of Medical Physics, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London SE1 9RT, UK, IMR Unit, St Mary’s Hospital, Praed Street, London W2 1NY, UK, Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK, Centre for Medical Image Computing, New Engineering Building, University College London, Malet Place, London WC1E 6BT, Cancer Research UK Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research Group, Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, Downs Road, Sutton SM2 5PT, UK, Department of Radiology, University Hospital, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK, Radiological Sciences Unit, the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and Imperial College London, Charing Cross Hospital, London W6 8RF and Optics and Semiconductor Group, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, Exhibition Row, London SW7 2AT, UK

A fast-marching approach to cardiac electrophysiology simulation for XMR interventional imaging

Abstract: Cardiac ablation procedures are becoming more routine to treat arrhythmias. The development of electrophysiological models will allow investigation of treatment strategies. However, current models are computationally expensive and often too complex to be adjusted with current clinical data. In this paper, we have proposed a fast algorithm to solve Eikonal-based models on triangular meshes. These models can be used to extract hidden parameters of the cardiac function from clinical data in a very short time, thus could be used during interventions. We propose a first approach to estimate these parameters, and have tested it on synthetic and real data derived using XMR imaging.We demonstrated a qualitative matching between the estimated parameter and XMR data. This novel approach opens up possibilities to directly integrate modelling in the interventional room.

NeuroGrid: using grid technology to advance neuroscience

Abstract: Large-scale clinical studies in neuro-imaging are hampered by several factors including variances in acquisition techniques, quality assurance and access to remote datasets. The Neurogrid project will build on the experience of other UK e-science projects to assemble a grid infrastructure, and apply this to three exemplar areas: stroke, dementia and psychosis, to conduct collaborative neuroscience research.

Coregistration of Structural and Functional Images

Abstract: Images are spatial distributions of information. Accurately relating information from several images requires image registration. Alignment of a PET image with a high-resolution image such as a Magnetic Resonance (MR) image has successfully allowed anatomical or structural context to be inferred from the coarser-resolution PET image. PET to MRI registration was one of the earliest successful examples of image registration to find widespread application. Since then, image registration has become a major area of research in medical imaging, spawning a wide range of applications and a large number of papers in the medical and scientific literature. Recent reviews are provided in Maintz et al. [1] and Hill et al. [2]. Much of this chapter is a summary of information in the latter plus a recent textbook on image registration [3]. Further algorithmic and implementation details are contained in these two sources. This chapter addresses the software approach to image registration. The first section classifies registration applications and outlines the process of registration. It then discusses some concepts of correspondence inherent in image registration and summarises frequently used transformations. Methods for aligning images based on landmarks or geometric features and recent advances using the statistics of image intensities directly to align images – the so-called “voxel similarity” measures – are described. Some details are given on image preparation, optimization, image sampling, common pitfalls and validation. A Classification of Registration Applications

Localization of abnormal conduction pathways for tachyarrhythmia treatment using tagged MRI

Abstract: Tachyarrhythmias are pathological fast heart rhythms often caused by abnormally conducting myocardial areas (foci). Treatment by radio-frequency (RF) ablation uses electrode-catheters to monitor and destroy foci.The procedure is normally guided with x-rays (2D), and thus prone to errors in location and excessive radiation exposure. Our main goal is to provide pre- and intra-operative 3D MR guidance in XMR systems by locating the abnormal conduction pathways. We address the inverse electro-mechanical relation by using motion in order to infer electrical propagation. For this purpose we define a probabilistic measure of the onset of regional myocardial activation, derived from 3D motion fields obtained by tracking tagged MR sequences with non-rigid registration. Activation isochrones are then derived to determine activation onset. We also compare regional motion between two different image acquisitions, thus assisting in diagnosing arrhythmia, in follow up of treatment, and in determining whether the ablation was successful.Difference maps of isochrones and other motion descriptors are computed to determine abnormal patterns. Validation was carried out using an electro-mechanical model of the heart, synthetic data, a cardiac MRI atlas of motion and geometry, MRI data from 6 healthy volunteers (one of them subjected to stress), and an MRI study on a patient with tachyarrhythmia, before and after RF ablation. A pre-operative MRI study on a second patient with tachyarrhythmia was used to test the methodology in a clinical scenario, predicting the abnormally conducting region.

Magnetic resonance imaging for interventional procedures

Abstract: Two different RF-frequency ranges or bands are employed viz. at the localisation RF-frequency and at the imaging RF-frequency, respectively. At these respective RF-frequency ranges different types of magnetic resonance signals are acquired. At the localisation RF-frequency a high sensitivity for the position of the interventional device is achieved. At the imaging RF-frequency a high sensitivity for image information, i.e. contrast resolution, of the anatomical structures of the patient to be examined is achieved.

Inter-breath-hold registration for the production of high resolution cardiac MR volumes

Abstract: High resolutionMRI images of the beating heart permit observation of detailed anatomical features and enable quantification of small changes in metrics of cardiac function. To obtain approximately isotropic sampling with an adequate spatial and temporal resolution, these images need to be acquired in multiple breath-holds. They are, therefore, often affected by through-plane discontinuities due to inconsistent breath-hold positions. This paper presents a method to correct for these discontinuities by performing breath-hold-by-breath-hold registration of high resolution 3D data to radial long axis images. The corrected images appear free of discontinuities, and it was found that they could be delineated more reproducibly than uncorrected images. This reduces the sample size required to detect systematic changes in blood pool volume by 57% at end systole and 78% at end diastole.

Dynamic three-dimensional undersampled data reconstruction employing temporal registration

Abstract: Dynamic 3D imaging is needed for many applications such as imaging of the heart, joints, and abdomen. For these, the contrast and resolution that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers are desirable. Unfortunately, the long acquisition time of MRI limits its application. Several techniques have been proposed to shorten the scan time by undersampling the k-space. To recover the missing data they make assumptions about the object's motion, restricting it in space, spatial frequency, temporal frequency, or a combination of space and temporal frequency. These assumptions limit the applicability of each technique. In this work we propose a reconstruction technique based on a weaker complementary assumption that restricts the motion in time. The technique exploits the redundancy of information in the object domain by predicting time frames from frames where there is little motion. The proposed method is well suited for several applications, in particular for cardiac imaging, considering that the heart remains relatively still during an important fraction of the cardiac cycle, or joint imaging where the motion can easily be controlled. This paper presents the new technique and the results of applying it to knee and cardiac imaging. The results show that the new technique can effectively reconstruct dynamic images acquired with an undersampling factor of 5. The resulting images suffer from little temporal and spatial blurring, significantly better than a sliding window reconstruction. An important attraction of the technique is that it combines reconstruction and registration, thus providing not only the 3D images but also its motion quantification. The method can be adapted to non-Cartesian k-space trajectories and nonuniform undersampling patterns.

An inverse problem approach to the estimation of volume change

Abstract: We present a new technique for determining structure-by-structure volume changes, using an inverse problem approach. Given a pre-labelled brain and a series of images at different time-points, we generate finite element meshes from the image data, with volume change modelled by means of an unknown coefficient of expansion on a perstructure basis. We can then determine the volume change in each structure of interest using inverse problem optimization techniques. The proposed method has been tested with simulated and clinical data. Results suggest that the presented technique can be seen as an alternative for volume change estimation.

A comparison of the tissue classification and the segmentation propagation techniques in MRI brain image segmentation

Abstract: Tissue classifications of the MRI brain images can either be obtained by segmenting the images or propagating the segmentations of the atlas to the target image. This paper compares the classification results of the direct segmentation method using FAST with those of the segmentation propagation method using nreg and the MNI Brainweb phantom images. The direct segmentation is carried out by extracting the brain and classifying the tissues by FAST. The segmentation propagation is carried out by registering the Brainweb atlas image to the target images by affine registration, followed by non-rigid registration at different control spacing, then transforming the PVE (partial volume effect) fuzzy membership images of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM) of the atlas image into the target space respectively. We have compared the running time, reproducibility, global and local differences between the two methods. Direct segmentation is much faster. There is no significant difference in reproducibility between the two techniques. There are significant global volume differences on some tissue types between them. Visual inspection was used to localize these differences. This study had no gold standard segmentations with which to compare the automatic segmentation solutions, but the global and local volume differences suggest that the most appropriate algorithm is likely to be application dependent.

Propagating labels of the human brain based on non-rigid MR image registration: an evaluation

Abstract: Background: In order to perform statistical analysis of cohorts based on images, reliable methods for automated anatomical segmentation are required. Label propagation (LP) from manually segmented atlases onto newly acquired images is a particularly promising approach. Methods: We investigated LP on a set of 6 three-dimensional T1-weighted magnetic resonance data sets of the brains of normal individuals. For each image, a manually prepared segmentation of 67 structures was available. Each subject image was used in turn as an atlas and registered non-rigidly to each other subject's image. The resulting transformations were applied to the label sets, yielding five different generated segmentations for each subject, which we compared with the native manual segmentations using an overlap measure (similarity index, SI). We then reviewed the LP results for five structures with varied anatomical and label characteristics visually to determine how the registration procedure had affected the delineation of their boundaries. Results: The majority of structures propagated well as measured by SI (SI > 70 in 80% of measurements). Boundaries that were marked in the atlas image by definite intensity differences were congruent, with good agreement between the manual and the generated segmentations. Some boundaries in the manual segmentation were defined as planes marked by landmarks; such boundaries showed greater mismatch. In some cases, the proximity of structures with similar intensity distorted the LP results: e.g., parts of the parahippocampal gyrus were labeled as hippocampus in two cases. Conclusion: The size and shape of anatomical structures can be determined reliably using label propagation, especially where boundaries are defined by distinct differences in grey scale image intensity. These results will inform further work to evaluate potential clinical uses of information extracted from images in this way.

Detecting and comparing the onset of myocardial activation and regional motion changes in tagged MR for XMR-Guided RF ablation

Abstract: Radio-frequency (RF) ablation uses electrode-catheters to destroy abnormally conducting myocardial areas that lead to potentially lethal tachyarrhythmias. The procedure is normally guided with x-rays (2D), leading to errors in location and excessive radiation exposure. One of our goals is to provide pre- and intra-operative 3D MR guidance in XMR systems (combined X-ray and MRI room) by locating myocardial regions with abnormal electrical conduction patterns. We address the inverse electro-mechanical relation by using motion in order to infer electrical propagation. For this purpose we define a probabilistic measure of the onset of regional myocardial activation derived from motion fields. The 3D motion fields are obtained using non-rigid registration of tagged MR sequences to track the heart. The myocardium is subdivided in segments and the derived activation isochrones maps compared. We also compare regional motion between two different image acquisitions, thus assisting in diagnosing arrhythmia, in follow up of treatment, and particularly in determining whether the electro-physiological intervention succeeded. We validate our methods using an electro-mechanical model of the heart, synthetic data from a cardiac motion simulator for tagged MRI, a cardiac MRI atlas of motion and geometry, MRI data from 6 healthy volunteers (one of them subjected to stress), and an MRI study on one patient with tachyarrhythmia, before and after RF ablation. Results seem to corroborate that the ablation had the desired effect of regularising cardiac contraction.