Image Processing in Radiation Therapy

by Kristy K. Brock (Editor)

Overview

Images from CT, MRI, PET, and other medical instrumentation have become central to the radiotherapy process in the past two decades, thus requiring medical physicists, clinicians, dosimetrists, radiation therapists, and trainees to integrate and segment these images efficiently and accurately in a clinical environment. Image Processing in Radiation Therapy presents an up-to-date, detailed treatment of techniques and algorithms for the registration, segmentation, reconstruction, and evaluation of imaging data. It describes how these tools are used in radiation planning, treatment delivery, and outcomes assessment.

The book spans deformable registration, segmentation, and image reconstruction and shows how to incorporate these practices in radiation therapy. The first section explores image processing in adaptive radiotherapy, online monitoring and tracking, dose accumulation, and accuracy assessment. The second section describes the mathematical approach to deformable registration. The book presents similarity metrics used for registration techniques, discussing their effectiveness and applicability in radiation therapy. It also evaluates parametric and nonparametric image registration techniques and their applications in radiation therapy processes. The third section assesses the efficiency, robustness, and breadth of application of image segmentation approaches, including atlas-based, level set, and registration-based techniques. The fourth section focuses on advanced imaging techniques for radiotherapy, such as 3D image reconstruction and image registration using a graphics processor unit.

With contributions from an international group of renowned authors, this book provides a comprehensive description of image segmentation and registration, in-room imaging, and advanced reconstruction techniques. Through many practical examples, it illustrates the clinical rationale and implementation of the techniques.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367576356
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	06/30/2020
Series:	Imaging in Medical Diagnosis and Therapy
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	8.25(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Kristy K. Brock is an associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Michigan, where she received her Ph.D. in nuclear engineering and radiological sciences. She is a board member of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the therapy science director for the 2013 AAPM 2013 annual meeting, an editorial board member of Medical Physics, and a diplomat in therapeutic radiological physics of the American Board of Radiology. Her research focuses on deformable registration for dose accumulation and adaptive radiotherapy, the application of biomechanical modeling in correlative pathology, and therapy response assessment.

Table of Contents

Image Processing in Radiotherapy Applications: Image Processing in Adaptive Radiotherapy. Online Monitoring, Tracking, and Dose Accumulation. Validation of Image Registration. Registration: Similarity Metrics. Parametric Image Registration. Toward Realistic Biomechanical-Based Modeling for Image-Guided Radiation. Nonparametric: Demons, Diffusion, and Viscous-Fluid Approaches. Optimization in Image Registration. Segmentation: Basic Segmentation. Deformable Shape Models for Image Segmentation. Level Set for Radiotherapy Treatment Planning. Atlas-Based Segmentation: Concepts and Applications. Advanced Imaging Techniques: Advances in 3D Image Reconstruction. Advancements in Respiratory Sorting: The Future of Respiratory Sorting. In-Room Imaging Techniques. Affine Medical Image Registration Using Graphics Processing Unit. Index.

Editorial Reviews

"As no dedicated course on image processing for radiation therapy typically exists, this book may very well help build the foundation for future educational initiatives in this important bridging area. One could imagine a future version of this book containing problems to allow students to exercise the knowledge they've gained."
—James Balter, PhD, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, USA

From the Publisher

Reviewer: James Balter, PhD (University of Michigan Medical School)
Description: Part of the Imaging in Medical Diagnosis and Therapy series, this book provides a fairly thorough review of the current state of image processing algorithms and imaging systems related primarily to the paradigm of image-assisted contouring, image registration, and image-guidance for patient positioning and geometric adaptive radiation therapy. It is written at a level right at the threshold of general reading and classroom textbook.
Purpose: The field of radiation therapy has seen explosive advances in the integration of imaging in the routine workflow of treatment planning, setup/verification/adaptation, and assessment. Led by parallel developments in imaging equipment development, advanced image processing algorithms, and clinical studies demonstrating benefit from the select use of these developments, the typical modern radiation therapy center is infused with a large amount of volumetric imaging information that needs to be handled with computer assistance for effective use. The argument that there is a pressing need for radiation therapy professionals to better understand the algorithms and systems that manage this imaging information is well supported. This book successfully fulfills its goals by covering in reasonable detail a number of the fundamental and evolving algorithms related to image registration and segmentation, and provides interesting vignettes on more select aspects of imaging and image processing.
Audience: This book is recommended for two audiences. First, it serves as a slightly intense, but very useful overview that can appeal to interested clinical physicists and other radiation therapy professionals. Second, it is an outstanding detailed reference for academic medical physicists and imaging scientists, and potentially can serve as the primary reference for a classroom lecture series in imaging for radiation therapy. Graduate students in medical physics and, potentially, biomedical engineering and other related disciplines will find the detail in most chapters of exceptional value. The editor is an internationally recognized expert in the area of deformable image registration and its application across a broad spectrum of clinical utilizations. She has assembled a collection of 31 authors from 24 institutions, most of whom are well known as experts in their respective areas of imaging.
Features: Initial chapters generally explore some of the major applications of image processing to be dealt with, and introduce issues that should be noted in their implementation and use. The general workflow of adaptive therapy and related elements is nicely laid out, followed by a chapter discussing the use of imaging related to precision therapy in regions of the body where physiological movement may warrant online monitoring, tracking, and potentially dose accumulation. The third chapter on validation of image registration provides a very solid basis for understanding alignment quality assurances, along with a comprehensive review of related work to date. The next two sections go into more depth about some specific algorithms of relevance for radiation therapy. The registration section provides a very thorough description of the elements of image registration algorithms. Similarity metrics are robustly described, followed by parametric deformation models, biomechanical models, and nonparametric alignment models. The last chapter in this section covers optimization methods for finding deformable transformations. The level of detail in these chapters is sufficient to promote a fundamental understanding of the elements of image registration for graduate students or medical physicists to appreciate all the elemental details of newly presented combinations. The segmentation section describes a broad range of methods for aiding automated delineation of anatomic constructs from volumetric images. Chapter 9 covers basic segmentation methods and is broadly applicable to the radiation therapy community. The next two chapters (deformable shape models and level set) appeal to more specialized imaging experts. The last chapter in this section provides a nice introduction to atlas-based segmentation at a level that all audiences can understand. The final section is a mix of broad overviews of imaging techniques and specific discussions of existing and emerging methods of image processing of relevance to the radiation therapy community.
Assessment: This book will have broad appeal because it covers a large portion of the concepts of image processing relevant to the radiation therapy community, and does so with a nice mix of general and detailed chapters where appropriate. As no dedicated course on image processing for radiation therapy typically exists, this book may very well help build the foundation for future educational initiatives in this important bridging area. One could imagine a future version of this book containing problems to allow students to exercise the knowledge they've gained. Different classes of readers will be able to appreciate this book at different levels. Clinical medical physicists will have a reference that provides some insight into segmentation, alignment, and adaptive therapy support tools that otherwise appear as "black box" algorithms, and can use this knowledge to make practical decisions about clinical assessment and use. Imaging scientists and students in imaging and/or radiation oncology physics can use many of the chapters to get a fundamental description of some of the critical elements of emerging methods to advance imaging use.

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