Registration of CT to pre-treatment MRI for planning of MR-HIFU ablation treatment of painful bone metastases

MR-HIFU is a new non-invasive treatment modality that can be used for palliation in patients with painful bone metastases. Since treatment strategies are mainly focused on the ablation of periosteal nerves, information on the presence and geometry of cortical bone influences the treatment strategy, both in determining the acoustic power and in avoiding safety issues related to far-field heating. Although MRI is available for imaging during treatment, CT is best used for examining the cortical bone. We present a registration method for registering CT and MR images of patients with bone metastases prior to therapy. CT and MRI data were obtained from nine patients with metastatic bone lesions at varying locations. A two-step registration approach was used, performing simultaneous rigid registration of all available MR images in the first step and an affine and deformable registration with an additional bone metric in the second step. The performance was evaluated using landmark annotation by clinical observers. An average registration error of 4.5 mm was obtained, which was comparable to the slice thickness of the data. The performance of the registration algorithm was satisfactory, even with differences in MRI acquisition parameters and for various anatomical sites. The obtained CT overlay is useful for treatment planning, as it allows an assessment of the integrity of the cortical bone. CT-MR registration is therefore recommended for HIFU treatment planning of patients with bone metastases