title: FZUImageReg: A toolbox for medical image registration and dose fusion in cervical cancer radiotherapy.
abstract: The combination external-beam radiotherapy and high-dose-rate brachytherapy is a standard form of treatment for patients with locally advanced uterine cervical cancer. Personalized radiotherapy in cervical cancer requires efficient and accurate dose planning and assessment across these types of treatment. To achieve radiation dose assessment, accurate mapping of the dose distribution from HDR-BT onto EBRT is extremely important. However, few systems can achieve robust dose fusion and determine the accumulated dose distribution during the entire course of treatment. We have therefore developed a toolbox (FZUImageReg), which is a user-friendly dose fusion system based on hybrid image registration for radiation dose assessment in cervical cancer radiotherapy. The main part of the software consists of a collection of medical image registration algorithms and a modular design with a user-friendly interface, which allows users to quickly configure, test, monitor, and compare different registration methods for a specific application. Owing to the large deformation, the direct application of conventional state-of-the-art image registration methods is not sufficient for the accurate alignment of EBRT and HDR-BT images. To solve this problem, a multi-phase non-rigid registration method using local landmark-based free-form deformation is proposed for locally large deformation between EBRT and HDR-BT images, followed by intensity-based free-form deformation. With the transformation, the software also provides a dose mapping function according to the deformation field. The total dose distribution during the entire course of treatment can then be presented. Experimental results clearly show that the proposed system can achieve accurate registration between EBRT and HDR-BT images and provide radiation dose warping and fusion results for dose assessment in cervical cancer radiotherapy in terms of high accuracy and efficiency.
authors.affiliation: Fujian Provincial Key Lab of Medical Instrument & Pharmaceutical Technology, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China.
authors.forename: Qinquan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Fujian Provincial Key Lab of Medical Instrument & Pharmaceutical Technology, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China.
authors.forename: Shaohui
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Fujian Provincial Cancer Hospital, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China.
authors.forename: Penggang
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.affiliation: Fujian Provincial Key Lab of Medical Instrument & Pharmaceutical Technology, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: First Hospital of Longyan City, Longyan, Fujian Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.affiliation: Fujian Provincial Key Lab of Medical Instrument & Pharmaceutical Technology, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China.
authors.forename: Dongzhong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ke
authors.affiliation: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH/Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Tong
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tong
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D012984:Software; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000532:radiotherapy*