Three-dimensional Liver Respiratory Motion Tracking in Ultrasound Images via Vascular Structural Projection...

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering
• Interventional Radiology

Background:

• Two-dimensional ultrasound (US) is crucial for abdominal interventions but limited by liver respiratory motion and lack of spatial information.
• Accurate tracking of liver motion is essential for improving the safety and efficacy of interventional procedures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel 3D respiratory motion model of the liver using optimized structural vector projection of US images.
• To enhance the accuracy of liver motion tracking in abdominal interventions.

Main Methods:

• Extracting vascular topological information from 3D US images and tracking 2D vessel motion.
• Spatially mapping 2D vessel motions to 3D space using topological information for 3D liver motion estimation.
• Employing a multi-path constrained optimization strategy for selecting optimal 3D motion vectors.

Main Results:

• The proposed framework successfully constructs a 3D respiratory motion model of the liver.
• Validation using simulated and clinical US data demonstrated an average motion estimation error below 2mm.
• The method outperformed existing techniques in 3D respiratory motion tracking accuracy.

Conclusions:

• The developed 3D liver respiratory motion model based on structural vector projection significantly improves motion tracking accuracy.
• This approach offers enhanced precision for liver motion tracking in interventional procedures.
• The validated model shows potential for real-time applications in image-guided interventions.