New technique registers US, MRI data for spine interventions

Tuesday, November 28 | 3:30 p.m.-3:40 p.m. | SSJ21-04 | Room S403A
A new technique by researchers at Johns Hopkins University could provide a way to use ultrasound to guide spine needle interventions.

Ultrasound has had limited clinical use for this particular application due to the problem of visualizing deep bony anatomy, wrote a group led by Jeff Siewerdsen, PhD. To address the problem, presenter Tharindu De Silva, PhD, and colleagues developed a method to register 2D ultrasound images to preprocedure MRI in real-time. Ultrasound-image simulation from MRI data using an ultrasound wave propagation model allowed for coregistration between ultrasound image sequences and MRI, according to the group.

The researchers found an average error of 1.3 mm between corresponding anatomical distances from ultrasound volumes constructed both by simulation-based registration and by optical tracking of an ultrasound probe. Registration accuracy --- which the group measured as the distance between corresponding anatomical locations from MRI and ultrasound -- was 4.5 mm.

What do the findings suggest? Correlating actual and simulated ultrasound images could be a useful way to create an MRI-specific 3D ultrasound dataset that physicians could use to better navigate spine pain procedures, De Silva and colleagues concluded.

"The proposed method could provide 3D ultrasound images registered to MRI to facilitate accurate needle targeting during spine needle interventions," the researchers wrote.

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