Co-registration of radiotherapy planning and recurrence scans with different imaging modalities in head and neck cancer

Abstract

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans are frequently used in follow-up after radiotherapy for head and neck cancer. With the overall aim of enabling MRI-based pattern of failure analysis, this study evaluated the accuracy of recurrence MRI (rMRI) deformable co-registration with planning CT (computed tomography)-scans (pCT). Uncertainty of anatomical changes between pCT and rMRI was assessed by similarity metric analyses of co-registered image structures from 19 patients. Average mean distance to agreement and Dice similarity coefficient performed adequately. Our findings provide proof of concept for reliable co-registration of pCT and rMRI months to years apart for MRI-based pattern of failure analysis.

Keywords

• Validation
• Deformable Image Registration
• Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
• Failure
• CT-MRI