Multimodality deformable registration of pre-and intraoperative images for MRI-guided brain surgery

Abstract

A method by which to register multimodality medical images accommodating soft tissue deformation is presented in the context of interventional therapy with a MR scanner. Accuracy testing with arbitrarily deformed MR images and application studies of a pig’s brain were undertaken to evaluate the feasibility of the method. When Mutual Information is employed as the voxel similarity measure in the matching energy function, the algorithm can accommodate multimodality images. Coupled with rigid registration, the deformable registration of pre-and intraoperative multi-modality images enables surgeons to precisely define critical anatomical structures, such as vessels and functional areas, and to localize and optimize trajectories. The method directly and automatically works on volumetric multimodality images. Thus the algorithm is suitable for intraoperative registration, where stability and simplicity are desirable.