A New Serial Image Registration Method for Contrast-Enhanced MRI Study

This paper presents a new method for aligning serial images acquired in contrast-enhanced MRI studies. A unique feature of the proposed method is that it uses dynamic references, rather than a single reference image as in the conventional method, to obtain co-registration of serial images. Specifically, each image serves as a reference for its neighboring images and the overall registration of all serial images is derived subsequently. We tested the new method using a digital image phantom and in-vivo contrast-enhanced tumor MRI data, using a least-square registration criterion and a rigid-body spatial transformation. Preliminary results showed that the new method is generally more robust and accurate than the conventional method