A Novel Model-Based Measure for Quality Evaluation of Image Registration Techniques in DCE-MRI

Dynamic Contrast Enhanced-Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DCE-MRI) has demonstrated in the last decades a great potential in screening of high-risk women for breast cancer, in staging newly diagnosed patients and in assessing therapy effects. The aim of this work is to propose a novel model-based measure for quality evaluation of image registration techniques in DCE-MRI. The proposed measure is based on a compartmental model of blood plasma and of the extra vascular extra cellular space (EES) for tumour tissue. Its suitability for evaluating image registration techniques has been indirectly verified by considering the results obtained, after each image registration technique, by a CAD segmentation system, developed in our previous work. In particular, it has been shown that the ranking obtained by means of the proposed quality assessment measure is in agreement with the ranking of the CAD segmentation systems, proving that our measure can correctly evaluate image registration techniques in the DCE-MRI context.