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Three-dimensional registration of myocardial perfusion SPECT and CT coronary angiography
Hidenobu Nakajo1, Shin-Ichiro Kumita, Keiichi Cho
1Department of Radiology, Center for Advanced Medical Technology, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan.
Insights
A new 3D image registration technique effectively combines CT coronary angiography (CTCA) and myocardial perfusion SPECT data. Nonrigid registration significantly improved image quality for diagnosing ischemic heart disease.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular imaging
- Medical image analysis
- Radiology
Background:
- Accurate integration of cardiovascular imaging modalities is crucial for diagnosing ischemic heart disease.
- CT coronary angiography (CTCA) and gated myocardial perfusion SPECT provide complementary information about coronary arteries and myocardial function.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and evaluate a novel technique for three-dimensional (3D) image registration between CTCA and gated SPECT.
- To assess the effectiveness of different registration methods (manual, rigid, nonrigid) for this purpose.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective analysis of 12 patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD).
- Manual 3D reconstruction of coronary arteries from CTCA data.
- Registration of gated SPECT data to a CTCA-derived left ventricle model using manual, rigid, and nonrigid methods.
Main Results:
- Successful 3D reconstruction and visualization for both CTCA and SPECT in all patients.
- Nonrigid registration demonstrated significantly superior image quality compared to manual and rigid methods (p < 0.05).
- Nonrigid registration yielded a significantly better cost function value than manual and rigid methods.
Conclusions:
- The developed 3D image registration technique facilitates the integration of gated SPECT and CTCA data.
- This technique holds potential clinical application for improving the diagnosis of ischemic heart disease.
Objective:
In this study, we describe a new technique for three-dimensional registration of CT coronary angiography (CTCA) and gated myocardial perfusion SPECT.
Methods:
Twelve patients with known or suspected CAD who underwent CTCA and gated SPECT were enrolled retrospectively. Coronary arteries and their branches were traced using CTCA data manually and reconstructed in three-dimensions. Gated SPECT data were registered and mapped to a left ventricle binary model extracted from CTCA data using manual, rigid and nonrigid registration methods.
Results:
Three-dimensional reconstruction and volume visualization of both modalities were successfully achieved for all patients. All 3 registration methods gave better quality based on visual inspection, and nonrigid registration gave significantly better results than the other registration methods (p < 0.05). The cost function for three-dimensional registration using nonrigid registration (235.3 +/- 13.9) was significantly better than those of manual and rigid registration (218.5 +/- 15.3 and 223.7 +/- 17.0, respectively). Inter-observer reproducibility error was within acceptable limits for all methods, and there were no significant difference among the methods.
Conclusion:
This technique of image registration may assist the integration of information from gated SPECT and CTCA, and may have clinical application for the diagnosis of ischemic heart disease.
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