3-D lung deformation and function from respiratory-gated 4-D x-ray CT images : application to radiation treatment planning.

Many lung diseases or injuries can cause biomechanical or material property changes that can alter lung function. While the mechanical changes associated with the change of the material properties originate at a regional level, they remain largely asymptomatic and are invisible to global measures of lung function until they have advanced significantly and have aggregated. In the realm of external beam radiation therapy of patients suffering from lung cancer, determination of patterns of pre- and post-treatment motion, and measures of regional and global lung elasticity and function are clinically relevant. In this dissertation, we demonstrate that 4-D CT derived ventilation images, including mechanical strain, provide an accurate and physiologically relevant assessment of regional pulmonary function which may be incorporated into the treatment planning process. Our contributions are as follows: (i) A new volumetric deformable image registration technique based on 3-D optical flow (MOFID) has been designed and implemented which permits the possibility of enforcing physical constraints on the numerical solutions for computing motion field from respiratory-gated 4-D CT thoracic images. The proposed optical flow framework is an accurate motion model for the thoracic CT registration problem. (ii) A large displacement landmark-base elastic registration method has been devised for thoracic CT volumetric image sets containing large deformations or changes, as encountered for example in registration of pre-treatment and post-treatment images or multi-modality registration. (iii) Based on deformation maps from MOFIO, a novel framework for regional quantification of mechanical strain as an index of lung functionality has been formulated for measurement of regional pulmonary function. (iv) In a cohort consisting of seven patients with non-small cell lung cancer, validation of physiologic accuracy of the 4-0 CT derived quantitative images including Jacobian metric of ventilation, Vjac, and principal strains, (V?1, V?2, V?3, has been performed through correlation of the derived measures with SPECT ventilation and perfusion scans. The statistical correlations with SPECT have shown that the maximum principal strain pulmonary function map derived from MOFIO, outperforms all previously established ventilation metrics from 40-CT. It is hypothesized that use of CT -derived ventilation images in the treatment planning process will help predict and prevent pulmonary toxicity due to radiation treatment. It is also hypothesized that measures of regional and global lung elasticity and function obtained during the course of treatment may be used to adapt radiation treatment. Having objective methods with which to assess pre-treatment global and regional lung function and biomechanical properties, the radiation treatment dose can potentially be escalated to improve tumor response and local control

Computational methods for the analysis of functional 4D-CT chest images.

Medical imaging is an important emerging technology that has been intensively used in the last few decades for disease diagnosis and monitoring as well as for the assessment of treatment effectiveness. Medical images provide a very large amount of valuable information that is too huge to be exploited by radiologists and physicians. Therefore, the design of computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) system, which can be used as an assistive tool for the medical community, is of a great importance. This dissertation deals with the development of a complete CAD system for lung cancer patients, which remains the leading cause of cancer-related death in the USA. In 2014, there were approximately 224,210 new cases of lung cancer and 159,260 related deaths. The process begins with the detection of lung cancer which is detected through the diagnosis of lung nodules (a manifestation of lung cancer). These nodules are approximately spherical regions of primarily high density tissue that are visible in computed tomography (CT) images of the lung. The treatment of these lung cancer nodules is complex, nearly 70% of lung cancer patients require radiation therapy as part of their treatment. Radiation-induced lung injury is a limiting toxicity that may decrease cure rates and increase morbidity and mortality treatment. By finding ways to accurately detect, at early stage, and hence prevent lung injury, it will have significant positive consequences for lung cancer patients. The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to develop a clinically usable CAD system that can improve the sensitivity and specificity of early detection of radiation-induced lung injury based on the hypotheses that radiated lung tissues may get affected and suffer decrease of their functionality as a side effect of radiation therapy treatment. These hypotheses have been validated by demonstrating that automatic segmentation of the lung regions and registration of consecutive respiratory phases to estimate their elasticity, ventilation, and texture features to provide discriminatory descriptors that can be used for early detection of radiation-induced lung injury. The proposed methodologies will lead to novel indexes for distinguishing normal/healthy and injured lung tissues in clinical decision-making. To achieve this goal, a CAD system for accurate detection of radiation-induced lung injury that requires three basic components has been developed. These components are the lung fields segmentation, lung registration, and features extraction and tissue classification. This dissertation starts with an exploration of the available medical imaging modalities to present the importance of medical imaging in today’s clinical applications. Secondly, the methodologies, challenges, and limitations of recent CAD systems for lung cancer detection are covered. This is followed by introducing an accurate segmentation methodology of the lung parenchyma with the focus of pathological lungs to extract the volume of interest (VOI) to be analyzed for potential existence of lung injuries stemmed from the radiation therapy. After the segmentation of the VOI, a lung registration framework is introduced to perform a crucial and important step that ensures the co-alignment of the intra-patient scans. This step eliminates the effects of orientation differences, motion, breathing, heart beats, and differences in scanning parameters to be able to accurately extract the functionality features for the lung fields. The developed registration framework also helps in the evaluation and gated control of the radiotherapy through the motion estimation analysis before and after the therapy dose. Finally, the radiation-induced lung injury is introduced, which combines the previous two medical image processing and analysis steps with the features estimation and classification step. This framework estimates and combines both texture and functional features. The texture features are modeled using the novel 7th-order Markov Gibbs random field (MGRF) model that has the ability to accurately models the texture of healthy and injured lung tissues through simultaneously accounting for both vertical and horizontal relative dependencies between voxel-wise signals. While the functionality features calculations are based on the calculated deformation fields, obtained from the 4D-CT lung registration, that maps lung voxels between successive CT scans in the respiratory cycle. These functionality features describe the ventilation, the air flow rate, of the lung tissues using the Jacobian of the deformation field and the tissues’ elasticity using the strain components calculated from the gradient of the deformation field. Finally, these features are combined in the classification model to detect the injured parts of the lung at an early stage and enables an earlier intervention

Segmentation, tracking, and kinematics of lung parenchyma and lung tumors from 4D CT with application to radiation treatment planning.

This thesis is concerned with development of techniques for efficient computerized analysis of 4-D CT data. The goal is to have a highly automated approach to segmentation of the lung boundary and lung nodules inside the lung. The determination of exact lung tumor location over space and time by image segmentation is an essential step to track thoracic malignancies. Accurate image segmentation helps clinical experts examine the anatomy and structure and determine the disease progress. Since 4-D CT provides structural and anatomical information during tidal breathing, we use the same data to also measure mechanical properties related to deformation of the lung tissue including Jacobian and strain at high resolutions and as a function of time. Radiation Treatment of patients with lung cancer can benefit from knowledge of these measures of regional ventilation. Graph-cuts techniques have been popular for image segmentation since they are able to treat highly textured data via robust global optimization, avoiding local minima in graph based optimization. The graph-cuts methods have been used to extract globally optimal boundaries from images by s/t cut, with energy function based on model-specific visual cues, and useful topological constraints. The method makes N-dimensional globally optimal segmentation possible with good computational efficiency. Even though the graph-cuts method can extract objects where there is a clear intensity difference, segmentation of organs or tumors pose a challenge. For organ segmentation, many segmentation methods using a shape prior have been proposed. However, in the case of lung tumors, the shape varies from patient to patient, and with location. In this thesis, we use a shape prior for tumors through a training step and PCA analysis based on the Active Shape Model (ASM). The method has been tested on real patient data from the Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville. We performed temporal B-spline deformable registration of the 4-D CT data - this yielded 3-D deformation fields between successive respiratory phases from which measures of regional lung function were determined. During the respiratory cycle, the lung volume changes and five different lobes of the lung (two in the left and three in the right lung) show different deformation yielding different strain and Jacobian maps. In this thesis, we determine the regional lung mechanics in the Lagrangian frame of reference through different respiratory phases, for example, Phase10 to 20, Phase10 to 30, Phase10 to 40, and Phase10 to 50. Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) lung imaging using radioactive tracers with SPECT ventilation and SPECT perfusion imaging also provides functional information. As part of an IRB-approved study therefore, we registered the max-inhale CT volume to both VSPECT and QSPECT data sets using the Demon\u27s non-rigid registration algorithm in patient subjects. Subsequently, statistical correlation between CT ventilation images (Jacobian and strain values), with both VSPECT and QSPECT was undertaken. Through statistical analysis with the Spearman\u27s rank correlation coefficient, we found that Jacobian values have the highest correlation with both VSPECT and QSPECT

Assessment of the distribution of aeration, perfusion, and inflammation using PET/CT in an animal model of acute lung injury

Hintergrund Durch die Entwicklung neuer in vivo Bildgebungsmethoden, z.B. der Computertomographie (CT) und der Positronen-Emissions-Tomographie (PET), konnte in den letzten Jahren das Verständnis über die Pathophysiologie des akuten Lungenversagens (acute respiratory distress syndrome, ARDS) maßgeblich verbessert werden. So zeigten PET/CT-Messungen, dass beim ARDS pathophysiologische Veränderungen von Lungenbelüftung und -durchblutung zu einer Störung des Gasaustausches beitragen. Die deshalb erforderliche mechanische Beatmung kann allerdings zu einer weiteren Schädigung der Lunge führen (ventilator induced lung injury, VILI). Bisher konnten weder die exakten pathophysiologischen Mechanismen des ARDS noch der potentiell schädigende Einfluss der mechanischen Beatmung vollständig geklärt werden. Fragestellung In dieser Doktorarbeit wurden PET/CT-Bildgebungstechniken für die Quantifizierung der pulmonalen Belüftung, neutrophilischen Inflammation und Perfusion im experimentellen Modell des ARDS verwendet. Hierfür wurden zwei Substudien durchgeführt. Ziel der ersten Substudie war es, in einem tierexperimentellen Modell des ARDS den relativen Einfluss der beiden wesentlichen Mechanismen von VILI, das zyklische Öffnen und Schließen von Alveolen (Atelektrauma) und die alveoläre Überdehnung (Volutrauma), auf die pro-inflammatorische Antwort der Lunge zu untersuchen. Die zweite Substudie hatte das Ziel, die Anwendung von Fluoreszenz-markierten Mikrosphären für Messungen der pulmonalen Perfusionsverteilung in akut geschädigten Lungen zu validieren. Es sollte geprüft werden, ob ex vivo Messungen mittels Fluoreszenz-markierten Mikrosphären alternativ zu in vivo PET/CT-Messungen mittels Gallium-68 (68Ga)-markierten Mikrosphären im experimentellen Modell das ARDS herangezogen werden können. Material und Methoden Es wurden zwei Substudien in analgosedierten, intubierten und mechanisch beatmeten Schweinen durchgeführt. Die Induktion des ARDS erfolgte durch repetitives, bronchoalveoläres Lavagieren mit isotonischer Kochsalzlösung. In der ersten Substudie erfolgten Untersuchungen an 10 Tieren. Nach Rekrutierung beider Lungen wurde eine absteigende Titration des positiven, end-exspiratorischen Drucks (positive end-expiratory pressure, PEEP) durchgeführt. Es folgte eine randomisierte Zuordnung der Versuchstiere zu einer vierstündigen Beatmungstherapie der linken, VILI Lunge zur Induktion eines Atelektraumas oder Volutraumas. In beiden Versuchsgruppen wurde ein vergleichbares Tidalvolumen von 3 ml/kg Körpergewicht appliziert. Zur Induktion von Volutrauma wurde ein hoher PEEP gewählt (2 cmH2O oberhalb des Levels, an dem sich die dynamische Compliance während der PEEP-Titration um mehr als 5 % erhöht). Zur Induktion von Atelektrauma wurde ein niedriger PEEP appliziert (PEEP, bei dem eine mit Volutrauma vergleichbare Atemwegsdruckdifferenz (Differenz aus Spitzendruck und PEEP) auftritt). In der rechten Lunge, welche als Kontrolllunge diente, wurde ein kontinuierlicher, positiver Atemwegsdruck von 20 cmH2O aufrechterhalten. Der Gasaustausch, insbesondere die Eliminierung von Kohlenstoffdioxid, wurde extrakorporal unterstützt. Nach vierstündiger Beatmung der linken, VILI Lunge erfolgte die Bildgebung. Für die Quantifizierung von Ausmaß und regionaler Verteilung der pulmonalen Inflammation wurde 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose (18F-FDG) intravenös injiziert und die Aktivität mittels dynamischen PET/CT-Aufnahmen erfasst. Die Erfassung der Lungenperfusion erfolgte mittels intravenös injizierten, 68Ga-markierten Mikrosphären und statischen PET/CT-Aufnahmen. Anschließende CT-Aufnahmen während Atemmanövern am Ende der Inspiration, Exspiration und am mittleren Atemvolumen dienten der Bestimmung von Lungenbelüftung, zyklischer Überdehnung und Rekrutierung. In der zweiten Substudie wurde in 7 Schweinen die Perfusion der linken und rechten Lunge untersucht (n = 14 Lungen). Nach jeweils einstündiger mechanischer Beatmung mittels zweiphasigem, positivem Beatmungsdruck überlagert mit einem Anteil an Spontanatmung am Minutenvolumen von 0 % oder > 60 % wurden Fluoreszenzmarkierte und 68Ga-markierte Mikrosphären intravenös injiziert. Unmittelbar im Anschluss erfolgten PET/CT-Messungen der Verteilung der 68Ga-markierten Mikrosphären. Für die Analyse der Verteilung der Fluoreszenz-markierten Mikrosphären wurden die Lungen am Versuchsende entnommen, getrocknet, in Würfel gesägt und die emittierende Fluoreszenz sowie das Gewicht jedes Würfels gemessen. Die in vivo PET-Aktivitätsmessungen wurden auf die mittels CT bestimmte Lungenmasse normalisiert (QRM). Die QRM-Daten wurden auf die Auflösung der Fluoreszenzmessungen herunterskaliert (QRM,downscaled). Die Analyse der ex vivo Fluoreszenzmessungen erfolgte durch Normalisierung auf die Masse der Lungenwürfel (QFM,Mass), auf deren Volumen (QFM,Volume) und auf Würfelmasse und -volumen (QFM,Mass,Volume). Die Auflösung und die äußeren Konturen der Lungen wurden zwischen ex vivo und in vivo Messungen verglichen. Lineare Regressionen von Perfusion und axialer Verteilung jedes Lungenvolumenelementes dienten der Bestimmung von Perfusionsgradienten entlang der ventro-dorsalen und kranio-kaudalen Achse. Die Anstiege der Regressionsgeraden wurden zwischen den Messmethoden verglichen. Für jede Lunge wurde die globale und regionale Perfusionsheterogenität bestimmt und zwischen den Messmethoden verglichen. Ergebnisse In der ersten Substudie verdeutlichten PET/CT-Messungen, dass, trotz vergleichbarer Perfusion, Volutrauma im Vergleich zu Atelektrauma zu einer höheren spezifischen Aufnahme von 18F-FDG in den beatmeten, VILI Lungen führte. Dieser Effekt trat hauptsächlich in zentralen Lungenregionen auf. Weiterhin führte Volutrauma, aber nicht Atelektrauma, zu einer höheren spezifischen 18F-FDG-Aufnahme in den beatmeten, VILI Lungen im Vergleich zu den nicht-ventilierten Kontrolllungen. CT-Aufnahmen verdeutlichten, dass Atelektrauma einen höheren Anteil an nicht belüfteten Lungenkompartimenten und mehr zyklische Rekrutierung zur Folge hatte. Volutrauma bedingte hingegen höhere Anteile an überblähten und normal belüfteten Lungenarealen und mehr zyklische Überdehnung. Die Atemwegsdruckdifferenzen waren anfänglich zwischen den Gruppen vergleichbar, stiegen im Verlauf bei Atelektrauma, aber nicht bei Volutrauma, an. In der zweiten Substudie verdeutlichten sowohl ex vivo QFM,Volume-Messungen, als auch in vivo QRM-Messungen die Existenz von Perfusionsgradienten entlang der ventrodorsalen und kranio-kaudalen Achsen, trotzdem QFM-Messungen eine 21-fach geringere Auflösung aufwiesen und die erforderliche Lungenentnahme und -trocknung eine Lungendeformation bedingte. Beide Messverfahren zeigten stärkere Perfusionen dorsaler und kaudaler im Vergleich zu ventraler und kranialer Lungenareale. Im Vergleich zu QRM,downscaled-Messungen wiesen QRM-Messungen höhere globale Perfusionsheterogenitäten auf. Verglichen mit QRM,downscaled-Messungen wiesen sowohl QFM,Volume-Messungen, als auch QFM,Mass,Volume-Messungen vergleichbare regionale Perfusionsheterogenitäten auf. Schlussfolgerungen In der ersten Substudie führte Volutrauma im Vergleich zu Atelektrauma, trotz vergleichbarem Tidalvolumen, geringerer Atemwegsdruckdifferenz und vergleichbarer Perfusion, zu einer höheren pulmonalen Inflammation. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass in diesem Modell des ARDS die mit Volutrauma assoziierten hohen statischen Drücke im Vergleich zu dynamischen Einflüssen die schädlicheren Mechanismen von VILI sind. Die zweite Substudie verdeutlichte, dass ex vivo Messungen der Verteilung von Fluoreszenz-markierten Mikrosphären bei Volumennormalisierung, trotz geringerer Auflösung und auftretenden Lungendeformationen, vergleichbare Messergebnisse hinsichtlich der Existenz und des Ausmaßes von Lungengradienten mit in vivo PET/CTMessungen aufzeigen. Eine Anpassung der Auflösung der in vivo Perfusionsmessungen an die der ex vivo Messungen verringerte sowohl die globale, als auch die regionale Perfusionsheterogenität. Bei gleicher Auflösung zeigten ex vivo QFM,Volume-Messungen vergleichbare globale und regionale Perfusionsheterogenitäten wie in vivo Messungen. Die Studienergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass für die Quantifizierung von pulmonalen Perfusionsgradienten ex vivo QFM,Volume-Messungen alternativ zu in vivo PET/CTMessungen durchgeführt werden können

Inverse-Consistent Determination of Young\u27s Modulus of Human Lung

Human lung undergoes respiration-induced deformation due to sequential inhalation and exhalation. Accurate determination of lung deformation is crucial for tumor localization and targeted radiotherapy in patients with lung cancer. Numerical modeling of human lung dynamics based on underlying physics and physiology enables simulation and virtual visualization of lung deformation. Dynamical modeling is numerically complicated by the lack of information on lung elastic behavior, structural heterogeneity as well as boundary constrains. This study integrates physics-based modeling and image-based data acquisition to develop the patient-specific biomechanical model and consequently establish the first consistent Young\u27s modulus (YM) of human lung. This dissertation has four major components: (i) develop biomechanical model for computation of the flow and deformation characteristics that can utilize subject-specific, spatially-dependent lung material property; (ii) develop a fusion algorithm to integrate deformation results from a deformable image registration (DIR) and physics-based modeling using the theory of Tikhonov regularization; (iii) utilize fusion algorithm to establish unique and consistent patient specific Young\u27s modulus and; (iv) validate biomechanical model utilizing established patient-specific elastic property with imaging data. The simulation is performed on three dimensional lung geometry reconstructed from four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) dataset of human subjects. The heterogeneous Young\u27s modulus is estimated from a linear elastic deformation model with the same lung geometry and 4D lung DIR. The biomechanical model adequately predicts the spatio-temporal lung deformation, consistent with data obtained from imaging. The accuracy of the numerical solution is enhanced through fusion with the imaging data beyond the classical comparison of the two sets of data. Finally, the fused displacement results are used to establish unique and consistent patient-specific elastic property of the lung

A novel MRA-based framework for the detection of changes in cerebrovascular blood pressure.

Background: High blood pressure (HBP) affects 75 million adults and is the primary or contributing cause of mortality in 410,000 adults each year in the United States. Chronic HBP leads to cerebrovascular changes and is a significant contributor for strokes, dementia, and cognitive impairment. Non-invasive measurement of changes in cerebral vasculature and blood pressure (BP) may enable physicians to optimally treat HBP patients. This manuscript describes a method to non-invasively quantify changes in cerebral vasculature and BP using Magnetic Resonance Angiography (MRA) imaging. Methods: MRA images and BP measurements were obtained from patients (n=15, M=8, F=7, Age= 49.2 ± 7.3 years) over a span of 700 days. A novel segmentation algorithm was developed to identify brain vasculature from surrounding tissue. The data was processed to calculate the vascular probability distribution function (PDF); a measure of the vascular diameters in the brain. The initial (day 0) PDF and final (day 700) PDF were used to correlate the changes in cerebral vasculature and BP. Correlation was determined by a mixed effects linear model analysis. Results: The segmentation algorithm had a 99.9% specificity and 99.7% sensitivity in identifying and delineating cerebral vasculature. The PDFs had a statistically significant correlation to BP changes below the circle of Willis (p-value = 0.0007), but not significant (p-value = 0.53) above the circle of Willis, due to smaller blood vessels. Conclusion: Changes in cerebral vasculature and pressure can be non-invasively obtained through MRA image analysis, which may be a useful tool for clinicians to optimize medical management of HBP

Quantitative pathophysiology in rabbit models of early onset scoliosis and expansion thoracoplasty

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityEarly onset deformity of the spine and chest wall (initiated <8 years of age) is associated with declining respiratory function and increased morbidity at adulthood relative to adolescent onset deformity of comparable severity. In young children it is presumed that inhibition of thoracic growth during late stage alveolarization leads to an irreversible loss of pulmonary growth and thoracic function. Consequently there is clinical incentive to treat children with growth-preserving therapies as early as possible. In particular thoracic reconstruction surgeries have gained clinical acceptance over the last 15 years with encouraging results, however due to the delicate nature of these patients and the absence of a proper untreated control population there is limited prospective evidence to objectively evaluate the benefits of these surgeries on respiratory health. Additionally, controversy remains with regard to the proper timing of surgical intervention and if greater gains in growth and function are achieved with treatment at an earlier age. Thus the primary aims of this current study were 1) to develop a surgical rabbit model representing early onset thoracic deformity (onset at 3 weeks postnatal) from which to characterize the natural progression of thoracic deformity in association with pulmonary growth and function, and 2) to use deformity rabbits from aim 1 to evaluate effectiveness of thoracic reconstruction, via expansion thoracoplasty, to preserve thoracic growth, pulmonary growth, and respiratory function with particular consideration regarding post-natal timing of intervention by evaluating separate early (7 weeks of age) and late (11 weeks of age) treatment cohorts. All rabbits were evaluated longitudinally until skeletal maturity (28 weeks of age) via pulmonary function testing and computed tomography (CT) imaging. Secondary aims were 3) to characterize the functional and structural respiratory heterogeneity occurring in these rabbits through evaluation of regional specific volume distributions via CT deformable-image-registration and through estimation of dynamic heterogeneity via inverse modeling of the respiratory input impedance, and 4) to evaluate the response of biological mechanisms in the alveolar microstructure in these rabbits through postmortem immunohistochemical assays for growth factors associated with angiogenesis (VEGF pathway) and cell proliferation (Ki-67 antibody). Our findings highlight the nature of pulmonary hypoplasia under restrictive conditions; the extent of respiratory growth and function at maturity was highly predictable from thoracic geometry measured at 6 weeks in untreated deformity rabbits. From this predictive knowledge gains in growth and function associated with expansion thoracoplasty are determined, our evidence suggests that treatment benefits to lung growth are largely offset by detrimental effects of surgery and early surgery could only provide improvements in severe cases where expected outcomes are very poor, benefits to late treatment rabbits were inconclusive. A forward-inverse modeling approach to link empirical data on specific volume and respiratory impedance shows that inherent structural heterogeneity limits the sensitive detection of heterogeneity originating from a disease process. Lastly post-mortem evidence of increased cellular proliferation is shown in the pulmonary parenchyma of thoracoplasty treated rabbits