Joint segmentation and groupwise registration of cardiac DCE MRI using sparse data representations

We propose a joint registration and segmentation method for cardiac perfusion images using robust PCA (RPCA) to decompose the time series into a low rank and sparse component. Registration maximizes the smoothness of the intensity signal in the low rank component. Segmentation minimizes the sparse component´s pixel intensity difference with other pixels having the same label. B-splines are used to combine the registration and segmentation costs. Tests on real patient datasets show the improved registration and segmentation accuracy over conventional methods that perform them separately.