title: Registration of MR and CT images of the liver: comparison of voxel similarity and surface based registration algorithms.
abstract: The purpose of this work was to determine the feasibility and efficacy of retrospective registration of MR and CT images of the liver. The open-source ITK Insight Software package developed by the National Library of Medicine (USA) contains a multi-resolution, voxel-similarity-based registration algorithm which we selected as our baseline registration method. For comparison we implemented a multi-scale surface fitting technique based on the head-and-hat algorithm. Registration accuracy was assessed using the mean displacement of automatically selected point landmarks. The ITK voxel-similarity-based registration algorithm performed better than the surface-based approach with mean misregistration in the range of 7.7-8.4 mm for CT-CT registration, 8.2 mm for MR-MR registration, and 14.0-18.9 mm for MR-CT registration compared to mean misregistration from the surface-based technique in the range of 9.6-11.1 mm for CT-CT registration, 9.2-12.4 mm for MR-MR registration, and 15.2-19.0 mm for MR-CT registration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, 749 Benedum Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
authors.forename: Wen-Chi
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Christina Lee
authors.forename: Mitchell E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Tublin
authors.forename: Brian E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Chapman
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008099:Liver / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012984:Software; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014481:United States