Super resolution in positron emission tomography imaging using ultrafast ultrasound imaging

• Main Authors: Tanter, Mickaël, Perez-Liva, Mailyn, Tavitian, Bertrand, Lopez Herraiz, Joaquin, Provost, Jean
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 26.03.2024
• Subjects: DIAGNOSIS; HUMAN NECESSITIES; HYGIENE; IDENTIFICATION; MEASUREMENT OF NUCLEAR OR X-RADIATION; MEASURING; MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; PHYSICS; SURGERY; TESTING

An imaging method including:a) acquiring N successive positron emission tomography (PET) low resolution images Γi and simultaneously, N successive Ultrafast Ultrasound Imaging (UUI) images Ui of a moving object;b) determining from each UUI image Ui, the motion vector fields Mi that corresponds to the spatio-temporal geometrical transformation of the motion of the object;c) obtaining a final estimated high resolution image H of the object by iterative determination of a high resolution image Hn+1 obtained by applying several correction iterations to a current estimated high resolution image Hn, n being the number of iterations, starting from an initial estimated high resolution image H1 of the object, each correction iteration including at least:i) warping the estimated high resolution image Hn using the motion vector fields Mi to determine a set of low resolution reference images Lni;ii) determining a differential image Di by difference between each PET image Γi and the corresponding low resolution reference image Lni;iii) warping back the differential images Di using the motion vector fields Mi and averaging the N warped back differential images to obtain a high resolution differential image;iv) determining the high resolution image Hn+1 by correcting the high resolution image Hn using the high resolution differential image;d) applying the motion vector fields Mi of each UUI image Ui to the final high resolution image H.