Image analysis methods for dynamic hepatocyte-specific contrast enhanced MRI

Patients with colorectal cancer are frequently presented with liver metastases for which (partial) resection is often the best therapy. However, the future remnant liver, the remaining part of the liver after resection, should allow adequate liver function to avoid liver failure. This thesis presents novel methods for the accurate voxel-wise...

Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI of the patellar bone: How to quantify perfusion

Purpose: To identify the optimal combination of pharmacokinetic model and arterial input function (AIF) for quantitative analysis of blood perfusion in the patellar bone using dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI). Materials and Methods: This method design study used a random subset of five control subjects from an...

A hybrid segmentation method for partitioning the liver based on 4D DCE-MR images

The Couinaud classification of hepatic anatomy partitions the liver into eight functionally independent segments. Detection and segmentation of the hepatic vein (HV), portal vein (PV) and inferior vena cava (IVC) plays an important role in the subsequent delineation of the liver segments. To facilitate pharmacokinetic modeling of the liver...

Functional Liver Partition of DCE-MRI

The proposed functional liver segments partition method based on DCE-MRI is introduced in this thesis.

Improved registration of DCE-MR images of the liver using a prior segmentation of the region of interest

In Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) of the liver, a series of images is acquired over a period of 20 minutes. Due to the patient's breathing, the liver is subject to a substantial displacement between acquisitions. Furthermore, due to its location in the abdomen, the liver also undergoes marked deformation. The large deformations...

Developing a tool for the validation of quantitative DCE-MRI

Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DCE-MRI) is becoming an indispensable tool to noninvasively study tumor characteristics. However, many different DCE-analysis methods are currently being used. To compare and validate different methods, histology is the gold standard. For this purpose, exact co-localization between histology...