Registration of trans-perineal template mapping biopsy cores to volumetric ultrasound

Pathology from trans-perineal template mapping biopsy (TTMB) can be used as labels to train prostate cancer classifiers. In this work, we propose a framework to register TTMB cores to advanced volumetric ultrasound data such as multi-parametric transrectal ultrasound (mpTRUS).

The framework has mainly two steps. First, needle trajectories are calculated with respect to the needle guiding template-considering deflections in their paths. In standard TTMB, a sparsely sampled ultrasound volume is taken prior to the procedure which contains the template overlaid on top of it. The position of this template is detected automatically, and the cores are mapped following the calculated needle trajectories. Second, the TTMB volume is aligned to the mpTRUS volume by a two-step registration method. Using the same transformations from the registration step, the cores are registered from the TTMB volume to the mpTRUS volume.

TTMB and mpTRUS of 10 patients were available for this work. The target registration errors (TRE) of the volumes using landmarks picked by three research assistants (RA) and one radiation oncologist (RO) were on average 1.32 ± 0.7 mm and 1.03 ± 0.6 mm, respectively. Additionally, on average, our framework takes only 97 s to register the cores.

Our proposed framework allows a quick way to find the spatial location of the cores with respect to volumetric ultrasound. Furthermore, knowing the correct location of the pathology will facilitate focal treatment and will aid in training imaging-based cancer classifiers.