title: Fusion of intravenous contrast-enhanced C-arm CT and pretreatment imaging for ablation margin assessment of liver tumors: A preliminary study.
abstract: The aim of this preliminary study was to evaluate the feasibility of assessing ablation margins after radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of liver tumors from fusion images of post-treatment C-arm computed tomography (CT) images fused to pretreatment images. Five patients with liver tumors underwent RFA. Intravenous contrast-enhanced C-arm CT images were obtained for all patients immediately after RFA, and multi-detector CT (MDCT) images were obtained 3-7 days later. The C-arm CT and MDCT images were fused to pretreatment images using a multimodality image fusion software. The minimum ablation margins were assessed in the C-arm CT and MDCT fusion images. Ablation margins after RFA of liver tumors can be measured using intravenous contrast-enhanced C-arm CT images fused with pretreatment images. This technique has the potential for use in the intra-procedural assessment of liver tumor ablation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Nissay Hospital, Itachibori, Nishiku, Osaka, Japan.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Iwazawa
authors.forename: Naoko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hashimoto
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mitani
authors.forename: Shoichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ohue
keywords: Cone-beam CT; multimodality fusion; radiofrequency ablation; safety margin