PET-MRI registration

Faculty of graduated studies / medical imaging technologies

Hybrid imaging course

Supervisor: Mohammad Al-Hjouj, PhD

Prepared by Osama Makhamreh

October , 2018
Introduction
• PET/MRI: The combination of positron emission tomography (PET)
and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides a unique clinical
imaging tool with significant applications in biomedical research.
PET/MRI systems for use in humans were first introduced in the year
2010.
• However, the differences between CT and MR imaging are
fundamental. This also leads to distinct differences between PET/CT
and PET/MR.

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 Positron-Emission-Tomography

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Principle of PET
• The concept of PET is to radiolabel a bio-compound, inject it into the
patient, and then measure its bio-distribution as a function of time to
determine physiologic quantities associated with the bio compound.
• All PET compounds are radiolabeled with positron-emitting
radionuclides.
• These radionuclides have decay characteristics that enable
localization in the body.
• A positron is emitted from the nucleus, travels a short distance, and
annihilates with its antiparticle (an electron), which results in two
511 keV photons traveling in opposite directions.
• After both photons are detected, the activity is localized somewhere
along the line defined by the two detectors.

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 A PET study consists of:
• producing radiotracers.
• Synthesizing radiopharmaceuticals
from the tracers.
• administering the
radiopharmaceutical to a patient.
• measuring the resulting
radioactivity distribution in an
organ of interest.
• interpreting activity distribution as
a function of physiologic
parameters.

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 The MR System

Technical room: Magnet B0 at 1.5 T

Cryocooler Gradient coil
Gradient amplifiers RF coil
RF amplifier
Power supplies
Monitoring unit

Magnet Main horizontal magnetic field B0 at 1.5T

Weight <1500 kg Length= 1250 mm
Cryocooler Water-cooled helium gas compressor for the
magnet cooling
Gradient coils Space encoding gradients along the three
directions X, Y and Z. Shims coils for field
homogeneity correction.
Ferro shim For passive shimming
RF coil Transmission of the B1 field and reception of the
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6 MR signal 7
Scanner Design

• The tandem design.

• Insert Architecture.
• Integrated Architecture,

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PET-MRI Registration:
• Combining PET and MR provides important information on the
structure–function relationship and permits precise anatomically
based definition of a region of interest.
• The fusion of PET and MR images can be achieved by using hardware
or software, that is, a dedicated system acquiring PET and MR images
simultaneously or a computation algorithm fusing PET and MR images
that are collected separately.

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Cont.
• A computation registration algorithm is typically made up of four
components:
1. an objective function.
2. a transformation model
3. an optimization process
4. an interpolation method.

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objective function
• The objective function defines the quantitative measure of the spatial
agreement between two images.
• The objective functions establish images' correspondence extrinsically
(fiducial localization errors) or intrinsically.
the iterative closest point algorithm
feature-based methods wavelet-based attribute vector
head-and-hat
The intrinsic
correspondences include cross correlation (CC)
square intensity difference
intensity-based methods
ratio image uniformity (RIU)
Kullback–Leibler distance

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Transformation model
• The transformation model defines degrees of freedom (DOF) of
moving images, including:
• rigid-body registration with 6 DOF (3 translation and 3 rotation).
• linear registration with 9 DOF (3 scaling plus the 6 DOF of rigid-body
registration).
• affine registration with 12 DOF (3 shearing plus the 9 DOF of linear
registration).
• nonlinear registration with more than 12 DOF (dependent on transformation
models used).

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Cont.
• The optimization process is a computer search of the objective
function.
• The interpolation method is used to resample the source images to
the desired image resolution.

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PET-MRI Registration techniques:
• the techniques useful for MRI-PET registration can be classified into
two main groups:
• Registration techniques represents prospective procedures designed with the
intention of performing both studies (PET and MRI) following a strict
dedicated protocol. An example is the application of a stereotactic head
frame. A variety of head holders or face masks have been considered to
establish a common coordinate system for both studies.
• Registration algorithms encompasses a variety of post-acquisition techniques
with less stringent requirements in patient handling. These retrospective
techniques, depend on the information content within the images, with each
pixel representing an intensity value or a physiological parameter at each
particular location inside the image volume.

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Cont.
• Two subgroups of retrospective algorithms can be identified.
• Techniques perform the registration in an automated manner with the
optimization step to find the best transformation based on similarity
measures. Utilizing a similarity measure assumes that the images to be
registered bear sufficient similarity to each other. Gray matter structures with
medium intensity values on T1- weighted MR images are bound to correlate
with areas of higher uptake in FDG PET images, while white matter structures
(with higher intensity values on this type of MRI) correlate with relatively
lower values in the PET images.
• The alternative subgroup encompasses interactive techniques which
incorporate the selection of multiple internal landmarks, the interactive
definition of contours, or a combination of both.

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PET-MRI Registration Algorithms:
• There are many algorithms used to PET-MRI registration such as:
objective functions of ratio image uniformity (RIU), normalized
mutual information (NMI), normalized cross correlation (CC) and
transformation models of rigid-body, linear, affine, and nonlinear
transformations.

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General Considerations for Accurate Registration
of MR and PET Images
• specific features of each modality should be considered In order to
successfully perform MRI-PET registration.
• These include, among others, good image quality (resolution,
contrast, no artifacts) with fields of view providing sufficient coverage
of the relevant part of the body in both image sets.
• the parts of the body or organ covered by the field of view of both
modalities.
• Artifacts due to unintentional patient movement cause one of the
most severe problems in registration of PET and MR images.

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PET-MRI Registration example

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 PET-MRI Registration example

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