SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MEDICAL IMAGE CORRECTION

• US 20160071269A1
• Filed: 09/05/2014
• Published: 03/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/05/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Tan, Ek Tsoon, Liu, Xiaofeng, Xu, Dan
• Granted Patent: US 9,953,397 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/055 involving electronic [EMR] or nuclear [NMR] magnetic resonance, e.g. magnetic resonance imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10088 Magnetic resonance imaging [MRI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/00 Geometric image transformations in the plane of the image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/80 Geometric correction
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/32 using correlation-based methods

Abstract

A method implemented using at least one processor includes receiving a target image and a reference image. The target image is a distorted magnetic resonance image and the reference image is an undistorted magnetic resonance image. The method further includes selecting an image registration method for registering the target image to the reference image, wherein the image registration method uses an image transformation. The method further includes performing image registration of the target image with the reference image, wherein the image registration provides a plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation. The method also includes generating a corrected image based on the target image and the plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a target image, wherein the target image is a distorted magnetic resonance image;

receiving a reference image, wherein the reference image is an undistorted magnetic resonance image;

selecting an image registration method for registering the target image to the reference image, wherein the image registration method uses an image transformation;

performing image registration of the target image with the reference image, wherein the image registration provides a plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation; and

generating a corrected image based on the target image and the plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the target image comprises acquiring a magnetic resonance image by a fast sampling technique.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving the target image comprises acquiring a magnetic resonance image by echo planar imaging technique.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the target image comprises image distortion due to magnetic field variations.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing comprises transforming the target image based on a non-rigid transformation.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the non-rigid transformation is based on a polynomial function.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the polynomial function is a third order non-linear function.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing comprises determining a similarity value based on a similarity metric.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the determining similarity metric comprises computation of a normalized mutual information.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing comprises determining the plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation based on an optimization technique.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the optimization technique uses a gradient based method.

12. A system, comprising:

at least one processor and a memory communicatively coupled to a communications bus;

an image acquisition module for receiving a target image and a reference image, wherein the target image is a distorted magnetic resonance image and the reference image is an undistorted magnetic resonance image;

an image registration module communicatively coupled to the image acquisition module and configured to;

select an image registration method for registering the target image to the reference image, wherein the registration method uses an image transformation; and

perform image registration of the target image with the reference image, wherein the image registration provides a plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation; and

an image correction module communicatively coupled to the image registration module and configured to generate a corrected image based on the target image and the plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation;

wherein, the image acquisition module, the image registration module, and the image correction module are coupled to the communications bus and at least one of them is stored in the memory and executable by the at least one processor.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the image acquisition module is configured to acquire the target image using a fast sampling technique.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the image acquisition module is configured to acquire the target image using echo planar imaging technique.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the image acquisition module introduces image distortion due to magnetic field variations.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the image registration module is configured to perform a non-rigid transformation of the target image.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the image registration module is configured to transform the target image based on a polynomial function.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the polynomial function is a third order non-linear function.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein the image registration module is further configured to determine a similarity value based on a similarity metric.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the image registration module is further configured to determine a normalized mutual information.

21. The system of claim 12, wherein the image registration module is further configured to determine the plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation based on an optimization technique.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the image registration module is further configured to perform a gradient based optimization technique.

23. A non-transitory computer medium encoded with a program to enable at least one processor to:

receive a target image, wherein the target image is a distorted magnetic resonance image;

receive a reference image, wherein the reference image is an undistorted magnetic resonance image;

select an image registration method for registering the target image to the reference image, wherein the image registration method uses an image transformation;

perform image registration of the target image with the reference image, wherein the image registration provides a plurality of optimized parameters of the image transformation; and

generate a corrected image based on the target image and the plurality of the optimized parameters of the image transformation.