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）成像的癌症管理正在迅速扩大其在临床实践中的作用。PET定位癌症的高灵敏度可能被其提供的最小解剖信息所混淆。额外的解剖信息将大大有利于诊断，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，但对癌症定位的敏感性低于PET。结合PET和CT图像将能够相对于详细的患者解剖结构准确定位功能信息。在临床环境中，目前大多数PET/CT图像融合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。 针对该问题的更通用的解决方案可以与现有的单个PET和CT扫描仪的大安装基数一起使用，其将继续扩展。此外，在医生的台式计算机（独立于扫描仪制造商）上提供这一点沿着改进的显示选项将大大提高融合技术的临床疗效。 这项研究和开发工作的长期目标是开发和验证用于分析PET/CT全身图像的高级PET/CT融合工作站。所提出的工作成功的关键将是（1）设计一个强大，快速，需要最少的用户交互的解决方案，以及（2）提供各种选项来显示和分析融合数据。 第一阶段的工作将集中在算法开发和融合显示器的初始原型。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.