Motion correction in dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance images using pharmacokinetic modeling

Abstract

Pharmacokinetic modeling is a mathematical modeling technique that examines the dynamics of concentration curves to reveal information about tissue microvasculature. Typically, image registration is performed as a pre- processing step to remove motion in dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) image sequences and ensure accurate pharmacokinetic analysis. In this work, we introduce a registration method for correcting motion in a sequence of DCE images. The proposed method involves the use of Tofts pharmacokinetic model to generate a sequence of reference images. These images simplify the challenging task of registering DCE images by pairing each frame in the motion- corrupted sequence with a reference image that resembles the overall contrast enhancement of the template. Abdominal DCE-MR images were used for validation. Reduction of motion in the registered sequence was observed both visually and quantitatively. Both global and local measures of registration accuracy obtained from the registered sequence and its associated signal intensity curves were smaller than their pre-registration counterparts.