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Geometrical accuracy and fusion of multimodal vascular images: A phantom study
Author(s) -
Boussion Nicolas,
Soulez Gilles,
De Guise Jacques A.,
Daronat Michel,
Qin Zhao,
Cloutier Guy
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.1751124
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , intravascular ultrasound , fiducial marker , image fusion , magnetic resonance imaging , medical imaging , biomedical engineering , image registration , computer science , materials science , nuclear medicine , artificial intelligence , radiology , medicine , image (mathematics)
The aim of this work was to compare the geometrical accuracy of x‐ray angiography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), x‐ray computed tomography (XCT), and ultrasound imaging (B‐mode and IVUS, or intravascular ultrasound) for measuring the lumen diameters of blood vessels. An image fusion method was also developed to improve these measurements. The images were acquired from a phantom that mimic vessels of known diameters. After acquisition, the multimodal images were coregistered by manual alignment of fiducial markers, and then by maximization of mutual information. The fusion method was performed by means of a fuzzy logic modeling approach followed by a combination process based on a possibilistic theory. The results showed (i) the better geometrical accuracy of XCT and IVUS compared to the other modalities, and (ii) the better accuracy and smaller variability of fused images compared to single modalities, with respect to most diameters investigated. For XCT, the error varied from 0.4% to 5.4%, depending on the vessel diameter that ranged from 0.93 to 6.24 mm. For IVUS, the error ranged from −0.3% to 1.7% but the smallest vessel (0.93 mm) could not be investigated because of the probe size. Compared to others fusion schemes, the XCT‐MRI fused images provided the best results for both accuracy (from −1.6% to 0.2% for the three largest vessels) and robustness (mean relative error of 1.9%). To conclude, this work underlined both the usefulness of the multimodality vascular phantom as a validation tool and the utility of image fusion in the vascular context.