Three-dimensional registration and fusion of ultrasound and MRI using major vessels as fiducial markers.

This paper describes fusion of three-dimensional (3-D) ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data sets, without the assistance of external fiducial markers or external position sensors. Fusion of these two modalities combines real-time 3-D ultrasound scans of soft tissue with the larger anatomical framework from MRI. The complementary information available from multiple imaging modalities warrants the development of robust fusion capabilities. We describe the data acquisition, specialized algorithms, and results for 3-D fused data from phantom studies and in vivo studies of the normal human vasculature and musculoskeletal systems.

Three-dimensional sonoelastography: principles and practices.

Sonoelastography is an ultrasound imaging technique where low amplitude, low-frequency shear waves (less than 0.1 mm displacement and less than 1 kHz frequency) are propagated through internal organs, while real-time Doppler techniques are used to image the resulting vibration pattern. When a discrete hard inhomogeneity, such as a tumour, is present within a region of soft tissue, a decrease in the vibration amplitude will occur at its location. This forms the basis for tumour detection using sonoelastography. For three-dimensional (3D) imaging the acquisition of sequential tomographic slices using this technique, combined with image segmentation, enables the reconstruction, quantification and visualization of tumour volumes. Sonoelastography and magnetic resonance images (MRI) of a tissue phantom containing a hard isoechoic inclusion are compared to evaluate the accuracy of this method. The tumour delineation from sonoelastography was found to have good agreement with the tumour from MRI except for a bleeding at one of its ends. Although sonoelastography is still in an experimental phase, the principles behind this imaging modality are explained and some practical aspects of acquiring sonoelastography images are described. Results from a 3D sonoelastography reconstruction of a tissue mimicking phantom and an ex vivo whole prostate specimen are presented.