Advanced PET/CT Fusion Workstation for Cancer Management

描述(由申请人提供)： 使用正电子发射断层扫描(PET)成像的癌症治疗正在迅速扩大其在临床实践中的作用。正电子发射计算机断层扫描定位癌症的高灵敏度可能会被它提供的最小的解剖信息所混淆。更多的解剖学信息将极大地帮助诊断、分期、治疗计划和治疗监测。 计算机断层扫描(CT)提供了详细的解剖信息，但对癌症的定位不如PET敏感。结合PET和CT图像将能够准确地定位与患者详细解剖相关的功能信息。在临床环境中，大多数PET/CT图像融合目前是使用原始软件解决方案或使用新型组合PET/CT扫描仪进行的。 这个问题的一个更普遍的解决方案可以使用现有的庞大的个人PET和CT扫描仪安装基础，这些基础将继续扩大。此外，在医生的台式计算机(独立于扫描仪制造商)上提供这一功能以及改进的显示选项将极大地提高融合技术的临床疗效。 这项研究和开发工作的广泛和长期目标是开发和验证一种先进的PET/CT融合工作站，用于分析PET/CT全身图像。拟议工作成功的关键将是(1)设计一个健壮、快速且需要最少用户交互的解决方案，以及(2)提供用于显示和分析融合数据的各种选项。 第一阶段的工作将集中在融合显示器的算法开发和初始原型制作上。在第二阶段，我们将使用癌症患者的PET/CT肺部数据集来验证我们的系统的质量。在第二阶段还将进行进一步的算法和PET/CT融合显示增强。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cancer management using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is rapidly expanding its role in clinical practice. The high sensitivity of PET to locate cancer can be confounded by the minimal anatomical information it provides. Additional anatomical information would greatly benefit diagnosis, staging, therapy planning and treatment monitoring. Computed tomography (CT) provides detailed anatomical information but is less sensitive towards cancer localization than PET. Combining PET and CT images would enable accurate localization of the functional information with respect to detailed patient anatomy. In clinical settings, most PET/CT image fusion is currently performed using primitive software solutions or using the new class of combined PET/CT scanners. A more general solution to this problem could be used with the existing large installed base of individual PET and CT scanners, which will continue to expand. Furthermore, making this available on the physicians' desktop computer (independent of the scanner manufacturer) along with improved display options will greatly increase the clinical efficacy of fusion technology. The broad, long-term goal of this research and development effort is to develop and validate an advanced PET/CT fusion workstation for analyzing PET/CT whole-body images. The key to the success of the proposed work will be (1) designing a solution that is robust, fast and requires minimum user interactions, and (2) provides a variety of options for displaying and analyzing the fused data. Phase I work will focus on algorithm development and initial prototyping of a fusion display. In Phase II we will validate the quality of our system using PET/CT lung data sets of cancer patients. Further algorithmic and PET/CT fusion display enhancements will also be conducted in Phase II.