title: Cardiac motion-corrected iterative cone-beam CT reconstruction using a semi-automatic minimum cost path-based coronary centerline extraction.
abstract: In this paper a method which combines iterative computed tomography reconstruction and coronary centerline extraction technique to obtain motion artifact-free reconstructed images of the coronary arteries are proposed and evaluated. The method relies on motion-vector fields derived from a set of coronary centerlines extracted at multiple cardiac phases within the R-R interval. Hereto, start and end points are provided by the user in one time-frame only. Using an elastic image registration, these points are propagated to all the remaining cardiac phases. Consequently, a multi-phase three-dimensional coronary centerline is determined by applying a semi-automatic minimum cost path based extraction method. Corresponding centerline positions are used to determine the relative motion-vector fields from phase to phase. Finally, dense motion-vector fields are achieved by thin-plate-spline interpolation and used to perform a motion-corrected iterative reconstruction of a selected region of interest. The performance of the method is validated on five patients, showing the improved sharpness of cardiac motion-corrected gated iterative reconstructions compared to the results achieved by a classical gated iterative method. The results are also compared to known manual and fully automatic coronary artery motion estimation methods.
authors.affiliation: Philips Research Laboratories, AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Alfonso.Isola@Philips.com
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Isola
authors.forename: C T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Metz
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schaap
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grass
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Niessen
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D055424:Cardiac-Gated Imaging Techniques / Q000379:methods; D054893:Cone-Beam Computed Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods