Joint Registration and Fusion of 3D Magnetic Resonance and 2D Ultrasound Images for Endometriosis Surgery

This paper investigates a general framework for the registration of 3D magnetic resonance (MR) and 2D ultrasound (US) images. This framework is divided into a rigid slice-to-volume 3D-2D MR/US registration and a 2D-2D US/MRI fusion algorithm to generate an image having a better resolution than the MR image and a better contrast than the US image. The accuracy of the joint registration and fusion method is analyzed by means of quantitative and qualitative tests conducted on experimental phantom and realistic synthetic data generated from an in vivo MRI volume, with a specific attention to endometriosis treatment.