Simultaneous C T-MR I Reconstruction for Constrained Imaging Geometries Using Structural Coupling and Compressive Sensing
Abstract: Objective: A unified reconstruction framework is presented for simultaneous CTMRI reconstruction.Methods: In an ideal CT-MRI scanner, CT and MRI acquisitions would occur simultaneously, and would be inherently registered in space and time. Alternatively, separately acquired CT and MRI scans can be fused to simulate an instantaneous acquisition. In this study, structural coupling and compressive sensing techniques are combined to unify CT and MRI reconstructions. A bidirectional image estimation method was proposed to connect images from different modalities. Hence, CT and MRI data serve as prior knowledge to each other for better CT and MRI image reconstruction than what could be achieved with separate reconstruction. Significance: Combined CTMRI imaging has the potential for improved results in existing preclinical and clinical applications, as well as opening novel research directions for future applications. Results: Our integrated reconstruction methodology is demonstrated with numerical phantom and real-dataset-based experiments, and has yielded promising results.