Image Registration of Serial 3 D MR Breast Data Using Local Parameters

Introduction Detection of small changes in the breast on serial MRI examinations is a common and important task. Registration of images may be essential in the case of dynamic MR mammography for the detection of breast cancer (1) or for the quantitative assessment of parenchymal breast tissue changes induced by hormonal therapy (2). The latter task requires serial scanning with time intervals of several weeks or even months. The breast, however, cannot be considered a rigid body with well defined internal landmarks. This makes the problem of matching serial data sets more complicated. The aim of this study was to develop and to test an algorithm which improves the coregistration between serial 3D MR breast images using combined translation and rotation with locally varying parameters.