3-D Registration on Carotid Artery imaging data: MRI for different timesteps

TL;DR

This paper investigates the impact of different registration techniques on carotid artery imaging data, demonstrating that the choice of method significantly affects geometric measurements, with statistical analysis confirming the importance of registration accuracy.

Contribution

The study introduces a statistical approach to evaluate how registration techniques influence carotid artery geometry measurements, highlighting the significance of registration choice.

Findings

Registration technique choice significantly affects carotid geometry measurements.

ANOVA results show p-values < 0.0001 for lumen distance differences.

Highlights the need for standardized registration methods in carotid imaging.

Abstract

A common problem which is faced by the researchers when dealing with arterial carotid imaging data is the registration of the geometrical structures between different imaging modalities or different timesteps. The use of the "Patient Position" DICOM field is not adequate to achieve accurate results due to the fact that the carotid artery is a relatively small structure and even imperceptible changes in patient position and/or direction make it difficult. While there is a wide range of simple/advanced registration techniques in the literature, there is a considerable number of studies which address the geometrical structure of the carotid artery without using any registration technique. On the other hand the existence of various registration techniques prohibits an objective comparison of the results using different registration techniques. In this paper we present a method for estimating the statistical significance that the choice of the registration technique has on the carotid geometry. One-Way Analysis of Variance(ANOVA) showed that the p-values were <0.0001 for the distances of the lumen from the centerline for both right and left carotids of the patient case that was studied.