Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 15, 2026
Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Skeletal Muscle Disease
Published on: December 18, 2016
Application of 3D-MR image registration to monitor diseases around the knee joint
Masaki Takao1, Nobuhiko Sugano, Takashi Nishii
1Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan. masaki-tko@umin.ac.jp
Purpose:
To estimate the accuracy and consistency of a method using a voxel-based MR image registration algorithm for precise monitoring of knee joint diseases.
Materials And Methods:
Rigid body transformation was calculated using a normalized cross-correlation (NCC) algorithm involving simple manual segmentation of the bone region based on its anatomical features. The accuracy of registration was evaluated using four phantoms, followed by a consistency test using MR data from the 11 patients with knee joint disease.
Results:
The registration accuracy in the phantom experiment was 0.49+/-0.19 mm (SD) for the femur and 0.56+/-0.21 mm (SD) for the tibia. The consistency value in the experiment using clinical data was 0.69+/-0.25 mm (SD) for the femur and 0.77+/-0.37 mm (SD) for the tibia. These values were all smaller than a voxel (1.25 x 1.25 x 1.5 mm).
Conclusion:
The present method based on an NCC algorithm can be used to register serial MR images of the knee joint with error on the order of a sub-voxel. This method would be useful for precisely assessing therapeutic response and monitoring knee joint diseases; normalized cross-correlation; accuracy.
