Spatio-temporal image registration for respiratory motion correction in PET imaging

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a molecular imaging technique which is now widely established as a powerful tool for diagnosing a variety of cancers. However, PET images are substantially degraded by respiratory motion to the extent that this may adversely impact upon subsequent diagnosis and patient management. A spatio-temporal image registration algorithm is proposed to align the moving images and correct for motion. Compared to the conventional spatial registration, the proposed algorithm has the potential to yield more accurate motion. Experimental results show that motion correction using the spatio-temporal registration algorithm significantly improves the PET image quality.