PDE-constrained optimization in medical image analysis

PDE-constrained optimization problems find many applications in medical image analysis, for example, neuroimaging, cardiovascular imaging, and oncologic imaging. We review the related literature and give examples of the formulation, discretization, and numerical solution of PDE-constrained optimization problems for medical imaging. We discuss three examples. The first is image registration, the second is data assimilation for brain tumor patients, and the third is data assimilation in cardiovascular imaging. The image registration problem is a classical task in medical image analysis and seeks to find pointwise correspondences between two or more images. Data assimilation problems use a PDE-constrained formulation to link a biophysical model to patient-specific data obtained from medical images. The associated optimality systems turn out to be sets of nonlinear, multicomponent PDEs that are challenging to solve in an efficient way. The ultimate goal of our work is the design of inversion methods that integrate complementary data, and rigorously follow mathematical and physical principles, in an attempt to support clinical decision making. This requires reliable, high-fidelity algorithms with a short time-to-solution. This task is complicated by model and data uncertainties, and by the fact that PDE-constrained optimization problems are ill-posed in nature, and in general yield high-dimensional, severely ill-conditioned systems after discretization. These features make regularization, effective preconditioners, and iterative solvers that, in many cases, have to be implemented on distributed-memory architectures to be practical, a prerequisite. We showcase state-of-the-art techniques in scientific computing to tackle these challenges.