Image registration techniques in nuclear medicine imaging

Abstract

Neclear medicine has a long tradition of incorporating quantitative analysis in its diagnostic procedures. Until recently, the analysis was based on radionuclide images as the sole input although the importance of the complementary information available from other modalities or from earlier scans has long been recognised. Indeed, qualitative correlation between images, based on anatomical expertise, has always been part of the repertoire of nuclear medicine clinician. However, spatial distortiom netween images, caused largely by differences in posture and acquisition technique, prevented the extension of these techniques to quantitative analysis. Recent advances in image registration software and hardware have made it increasingly possible to utilise that complementary image information in a clinical setting.