Diaphragmatic Surface Reconstruction from Massive Temporal Registration of Orthogonal MRI Sequences

The diaphragm is an important component of the respiratory pumping process. Orthogonal temporal sequences of MR images are acquired in free breathing without use of contrast. The vertical intersection between two orthogonal temporal sequences is determined, the diaphragmatic level in the vertical segment is determined and used to perform the temporal registration. Previous works used similar temporal registration algorithms to reconstruct the diaphragmatic surface. However, it is shown that the available information was not efficiently used. The proposed method massively performs temporal registrations, and then validates the determined temporal registrations. The images to be used in the diaphragmatic surface reconstruction are determined and its associated diaphragmatic levels are collected. Positions with inconsistencies have their diaphragmatic level determined by interpolation. The proposed algorithm is tested with MR image sequences obtained from a healthy subject. Copyright c ©2014 IFAC.