Title :
Attenuation Correction Synthesis for Hybrid PET-MR Scanners: Application to Brain Studies
Author :
Burgos, Ninon ; Cardoso, M. Jorge ; Thielemans, Kris ; Modat, Marc ; Pedemonte, Stefano ; Dickson, John ; Barnes, A. ; Ahmed, Rizwan ; Mahoney, Colin J. ; Schott, Jonathan M. ; Duncan, James S. ; Atkinson, David ; Arridge, Simon R. ; Hutton, Brian F. ; Ou
Author_Institution :
Centre for Med. Image Comput., Univ. Coll. London, London, UK
Abstract :
Attenuation correction is an essential requirement for quantification of positron emission tomography (PET) data. In PET/CT acquisition systems, attenuation maps are derived from computed tomography (CT) images. However, in hybrid PET/MR scanners, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images do not directly provide a patient-specific attenuation map. The aim of the proposed work is to improve attenuation correction for PET/MR scanners by generating synthetic CTs and attenuation maps. The synthetic images are generated through a multi-atlas information propagation scheme, locally matching the MRI-derived patient´s morphology to a database of MRI/CT pairs, using a local image similarity measure. Results show significant improvements in CT synthesis and PET reconstruction accuracy when compared to a segmentation method using an ultrashort-echo-time MRI sequence and to a simplified atlas-based method.
Keywords :
biomedical MRI; biomedical equipment; brain; computerised tomography; data acquisition; image matching; image reconstruction; medical image processing; neurophysiology; positron emission tomography; visual databases; CT synthesis; MRI image; MRI-derived patient morphology matching; PET reconstruction accuracy; PET-CT acquisition system; attenuation correction improvement; attenuation correction synthesis; brain study application; computed tomography image; database of MRI-CT pair matching; hybrid PET-MR scanner; local image similarity measure; magnetic resonance imaging; multi-atlas information propagation scheme; patient-specific attenuation map; positron emission tomography data quantification; segmentation method; simplified atlas-based method; synthetic CT image generation; synthetic attenuation map generation; ultrashort-echo-time MRI sequence; Accuracy; Attenuation; Bones; Computed tomography; Databases; Magnetic resonance imaging; Positron emission tomography; Attenuation correction; image synthesis; positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance (PET/MR);
Journal_Title :
Medical Imaging, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TMI.2014.2340135
