Phantom and non-rigid registration to tackle distorsions from MRI in stereotactic conditions: Proof of concept and preliminary results

Image distortion is a major issue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for focal therapy planning and particularly frame based applications such as stereotactic radiotherapy or radiosurgery. In this context, several phantoms have been proposed to characterize these distortions. In this paper, we introduce a novel device dedicated to distortion evaluation and correction. The device comes up with software developed to correct distortion by the application of nonrigid registration algorithms. The preliminary results presented here are satisfactory and encourage further analysis in order to validate the complete workflow for radiosurgery purpose.