On the correction of respiratory motion-induced image reconstruction errors in positron-emission tomography-guided radiation therapy
Background and purpose: Free breathing (FB) positron emission tomography (PET) images are routinely used in radiotherapy for lung cancer patients. Respiration-induced artifacts in these images compromise treatment response assessment and obstruct clinical implementation of dose painting and PET-guid...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2023-04-01
|
| Series: | Physics and Imaging in Radiation Oncology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405631623000210 |
| _version_ | 1827931128476991488 |
|---|---|
| author | Hualiang Zhong Lei Ren Yonggang Lu Yu Liu |
| author_facet | Hualiang Zhong Lei Ren Yonggang Lu Yu Liu |
| author_sort | Hualiang Zhong |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Background and purpose: Free breathing (FB) positron emission tomography (PET) images are routinely used in radiotherapy for lung cancer patients. Respiration-induced artifacts in these images compromise treatment response assessment and obstruct clinical implementation of dose painting and PET-guided radiotherapy. The purpose of this study is to develop a blurry image decomposition (BID) method to correct motion-induced image-reconstruction errors in FB-PETs. Materials and methods: Assuming a blurry PET is represented as an average of multi-phase PETs. A four-dimensional computed-tomography image is deformably registered from the end-inhalation (EI) phase to other phases. With the registration-derived deformation maps, PETs at other phases can be deformed from a PET at the EI phase. To reconstruct the EI-PET, the difference between the blurry PET and the average of the deformed EI-PETs is minimized using a maximum-likelihood expectation–maximization algorithm. The developed method was evaluated with computational and physical phantoms as well as PET/CT images acquired from three patients. Results: The BID method increased the signal-to-noise ratio from 1.88 ± 1.05 to 10.5 ± 3.3 and universal-quality index from 0.72 ± 0.11 to 1.0 for the computational phantoms, and reduced the motion-induced error from 69.9% to 10.9% in the maximum of activity concentration and from 317.5% to 8.7% in the full width at half maximum of the physical PET-phantom. The BID-based corrections increased the maximum standardized-uptake values by 17.7 ± 15.4% and reduced tumor volumes by 12.5 ± 10.4% on average for the three patients. Conclusions: The proposed image-decomposition method reduces respiration-induced errors in PET images and holds potential to improve the quality of radiotherapy for thoracic and abdominal cancer patients. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T06:48:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-11d6b1a3195b4a5b8853744e6fc496d4 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2405-6316 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T06:48:03Z |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Physics and Imaging in Radiation Oncology |
| spelling | doaj.art-11d6b1a3195b4a5b8853744e6fc496d42023-06-08T04:19:25ZengElsevierPhysics and Imaging in Radiation Oncology2405-63162023-04-0126100430On the correction of respiratory motion-induced image reconstruction errors in positron-emission tomography-guided radiation therapyHualiang Zhong0Lei Ren1Yonggang Lu2Yu Liu3Department of Radiation Oncology, Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI, USA; Corresponding author at: Department of Radiation Oncology, Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA.Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Maryland Baltimore, MD, USADepartment of Radiology, Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI, USADepartment of Radiology, Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI, USABackground and purpose: Free breathing (FB) positron emission tomography (PET) images are routinely used in radiotherapy for lung cancer patients. Respiration-induced artifacts in these images compromise treatment response assessment and obstruct clinical implementation of dose painting and PET-guided radiotherapy. The purpose of this study is to develop a blurry image decomposition (BID) method to correct motion-induced image-reconstruction errors in FB-PETs. Materials and methods: Assuming a blurry PET is represented as an average of multi-phase PETs. A four-dimensional computed-tomography image is deformably registered from the end-inhalation (EI) phase to other phases. With the registration-derived deformation maps, PETs at other phases can be deformed from a PET at the EI phase. To reconstruct the EI-PET, the difference between the blurry PET and the average of the deformed EI-PETs is minimized using a maximum-likelihood expectation–maximization algorithm. The developed method was evaluated with computational and physical phantoms as well as PET/CT images acquired from three patients. Results: The BID method increased the signal-to-noise ratio from 1.88 ± 1.05 to 10.5 ± 3.3 and universal-quality index from 0.72 ± 0.11 to 1.0 for the computational phantoms, and reduced the motion-induced error from 69.9% to 10.9% in the maximum of activity concentration and from 317.5% to 8.7% in the full width at half maximum of the physical PET-phantom. The BID-based corrections increased the maximum standardized-uptake values by 17.7 ± 15.4% and reduced tumor volumes by 12.5 ± 10.4% on average for the three patients. Conclusions: The proposed image-decomposition method reduces respiration-induced errors in PET images and holds potential to improve the quality of radiotherapy for thoracic and abdominal cancer patients.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405631623000210Positron emission tomographyMotion artifactDeconvolutionImage reconstructionImage-guided radiotherapy |
| spellingShingle | Hualiang Zhong Lei Ren Yonggang Lu Yu Liu On the correction of respiratory motion-induced image reconstruction errors in positron-emission tomography-guided radiation therapy Physics and Imaging in Radiation Oncology Positron emission tomography Motion artifact Deconvolution Image reconstruction Image-guided radiotherapy |
| title | On the correction of respiratory motion-induced image reconstruction errors in positron-emission tomography-guided radiation therapy |
| title_full | On the correction of respiratory motion-induced image reconstruction errors in positron-emission tomography-guided radiation therapy |
| title_fullStr | On the correction of respiratory motion-induced image reconstruction errors in positron-emission tomography-guided radiation therapy |
| title_full_unstemmed | On the correction of respiratory motion-induced image reconstruction errors in positron-emission tomography-guided radiation therapy |
| title_short | On the correction of respiratory motion-induced image reconstruction errors in positron-emission tomography-guided radiation therapy |
| title_sort | on the correction of respiratory motion induced image reconstruction errors in positron emission tomography guided radiation therapy |
| topic | Positron emission tomography Motion artifact Deconvolution Image reconstruction Image-guided radiotherapy |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405631623000210 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT hualiangzhong onthecorrectionofrespiratorymotioninducedimagereconstructionerrorsinpositronemissiontomographyguidedradiationtherapy AT leiren onthecorrectionofrespiratorymotioninducedimagereconstructionerrorsinpositronemissiontomographyguidedradiationtherapy AT yongganglu onthecorrectionofrespiratorymotioninducedimagereconstructionerrorsinpositronemissiontomographyguidedradiationtherapy AT yuliu onthecorrectionofrespiratorymotioninducedimagereconstructionerrorsinpositronemissiontomographyguidedradiationtherapy |