Echography and Tl-201 SPECT cardiac images registration using elliptical models

Abstract

A semi-automatical method for apical echocardiographic and myocardial TI-201 SPECT images registration is proposed. It uses oriented ellipses extracted from the LV myocardial center line in all images of the two modalities in one acquisition direction. These geometrical models allow SPECT-slice selection and 2D-registration, leading to a fused image involving the echographic image and its corresponding SPECT slice.The method was qualitatively evaluated with six patients, showing the potential usefulness of this tool in the study of myocardial ischemia and viability disease.