Cadaver validation of intensity-based ultrasound to CT registration

A method is presented for the registration of tracked B-mode ultrasound images to a CT volume of a femur or pelvis. This registration can allow tracked surgical instruments to be aligned with the CT image or an associated preoperative plan. Our method requires no manual segmentation of either the ultrasound images or the CT volume. The CT and US images are processed to produce images where the image intensity represents the probability of the presence of a bone edge. These images are then registered together using normalised cross-correlation as a similarity measure. The parameter which represents the speed of sound through tissue has also been included in the registration optimisation process. Experiments have been carried out on six cadaveric femurs and three cadaveric pelves. Registration results were compared with a "gold standard" registration acquired using bone implanted fiducial markers. Results show the registration method to be accurate, on average, to 1.7 mm root-mean-square target registration error.