Multimodality Image Fusion–Guided Procedures: Technique, Accuracy, and Applications

Personalized therapies play an increasingly critical role in cancer care; Image guidance with multimodality image fusion facilitates the targeting of specific tissue for tissue characterization, and plays a role in drug discovery and optimization of tailored therapies. PET, MRI and contrast enhanced CT may offer additional information not otherwise available to the operator during minimally invasive image guided procedures such as biopsy and ablation. With use of multimodality image fusion for image-guided interventions, navigation with advanced modalities does not require the physical presence of the PET, MRI, or CT imaging system. Several commercially available methods of image fusion and device navigation are reviewed along with an explanation of common tracking hardware and software. An overview of current clinical applications for multimodality navigation is provided