PET-CT image registration in the chest using free-form deformations

We have implemented and validated an algorithm for three-dimensional positron emission tomography transmission-to-computed tomography registration in the chest, using mutual information as a similarity criterion. Inherent differences in the two imaging protocols produce significant nonrigid motion between the two acquisitions. A rigid body deformation combined with localized cubic B-splines is used to capture this motion. The deformation is defined on a regular grid and is parameterized by potentially several thousand coefficients. Together with a spline-based continuous representation of images and Parzen histogram estimates, our deformation model allows closed-form expressions for the criterion and its…

• UO
  University of Washington