Ultrasound-based sensors for the fusion and motion correction of MRI and PET/CT data

项目总结 放射科配备了许多不同类型的医学成像扫描仪，例如 磁共振成像(MRI)、正电子发射断层扫描(PET)、计算机断层扫描(CT)、X射线、 超声成像(USI)和单光子发射计算机断层扫描(SPECT)等。 显然，这些模式都不是理想的；否则，任何人都没有理由购买任何 其他。每种情态都有自己的对比机制，并提供自己类型的信息。 理想的扫描仪可以在这里定义为能够提供这些对比中的任何一种的扫描仪，其 硬件将包括所有主要扫描技术所需的硬件，从而可以简单地选择 所需的扫描类型，例如MRI+CT+USI，然后继续。显然，在实践中，这样一个理想的扫描仪 太不切实际了。与每种医疗设备相关联的硬件组件将竞争少量 患者周围的可用空间和这些组件会以可能严重阻碍的方式干扰 它们的功能。即使这样的技术问题可以解决，复杂性也很可能会推动成本 令人望而却步的高度。更现实的多模式策略是按顺序执行扫描，对不同的 物理扫描仪，然后融合图像，主要是通过软件。例外情况包括混合扫描仪 例如广泛使用的PET/CT，以及可用但不常见的PET/MRI。事实是，这两个 让PET参与进来并不是巧合，而是证明了这样一个事实，即PET很可能是目前最好的 可用于诊断/分期癌症的工具，而且还需要良好的解剖图像 由CT或MRI提供，用于计算适当的衰减校正图。 特别是，PET/MRI扫描仪是真正的工程学杰作。这两种组合模式 事实证明，在癌症检测/分期和神经科学领域特别有用。可以说，主要问题是 这些扫描仪可能是稀有的和非常昂贵的，这两个问题与 当然了。工程学的杰作可能需要尊重，但它们也往往要求高昂的价格； 相比之下，本项目代表了一种实用和低成本的多模式成像方法。对于 促使供应商开发PET/MRI扫描仪的相同原因，因为这两种模式在 他们自己的权利又如此互补，我们在这里专注于将PET和MRI收购结合起来。但是 建议的工作并不局限于这两种扫描类型，在未来它很可能被证明可以推广到任何 来自任何成像方式和/或放射治疗设备的顺序扫描的组合。它是基于 可贴附于患者皮肤并可陪伴的超声传感器的研究进展 他/她通过顺序扫描，作为一条跨医疗机构的共同线索。安排了54名患者 对于临床，将招募PET/CT扫描来验证所建议的技术，其中一半将 也做了核磁共振扫描。

Project summary Radiology departments are equipped with many different types of medical imaging scanners, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Computed Tomography (CT), X-ray, ultrasound imaging (USI) and Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), among others. Clearly, none of these modalities is ideal; otherwise, there would be no rationale for anybody to purchase any others. Each modality is characterized by its own contrast mechanism and provides its own type of information. An ideal scanner might be defined here as one that could provide any of these contrasts, whose hardware would include that required for all of the main scanning techniques, whereby one could simply select the desired scan type, e.g., MRI+CT+USI, and proceed. Clearly, in practice, such an ideal scanner would be quite impractical. Hardware components associated with each modality would compete for the small amount of space available around the patient and these components would interfere in ways that might seriously impede their functioning. Even if such technical problems could be solved, complexity would likely drive cost to prohibitive heights. A more realistic multi-modality strategy is to perform scans sequentially, on different physical scanners, and to fuse images afterward, mostly through software. Exceptions include hybrid scanners such as PET/CT, which are widespread, and PET/MRI, which are available but uncommon. The fact that both involve PET is not a coincidence, but rather a testimony to the fact that PET may well currently be the best available tool for diagnosing/staging cancer, and that it further requires good anatomical images such as those provided by CT or MRI for proper attenuation correction maps to be calculated. In particular, PET/MRI scanners are true masterpieces of engineering. The two combined modalities prove especially useful in the fields of cancer detection/staging and neuroscience. Arguably, the main problem with these scanners may be that they are rare and very expensive, two problems that are not unrelated of course. Masterpieces of engineering may demand respect but they also tend to demand a high price; in contrast, the present project represents a practical and low-cost approach to multi-modality imaging. For the same reasons that drove vendors to develop PET/MRI scanners, because both modalities are so powerful in their own rights yet so complementary as well, we focus here on combining PET and MRI acquisitions. But the proposed work is not limited to these two scan types, and in the future it might well prove generalizable to any combination of sequential scans from any imaging modalities and/or radiation therapy devices. It is based on the developments of ultrasound-based sensors that can be attached to the patient's skin and accompany him/her through sequential scans, acting as a common thread across modalities. Fifty-four patients scheduled for a clinical PET/CT scan will be recruited to validate the proposed technology, and half of them will be scanned by MRI as well.