Automatic image-based cardiac and respiratory cycle synchronization and gating of image sequences

Abstract

We propose a novel method to detect the current state of the quasi-periodic system from image sequences which in turn will enable us to synchronize/gate the image sequences to obtain images of the organ system at similar configurations. The method uses the cumulated phase shift in the spectral domain of successive image frames as a measure of the net motion of objects in the scene. The proposed method is applicable to 2D and 3D time varying sequences and is not specific to the imaging modality. We demonstrate its effectiveness on X-Ray Angiographic and Cardiac and Liver Ultrasound sequences. Knowledge of the current (cardiac or respiratory) phase of the system, opens up the possibility for a purely image based cardiac and respiratory gating scheme for interventional and radiotherapy procedures. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.