Multimodality medical image fusion: applications in congenital cardiology

Brief history The earliest mention of the word ‘image fusion’ in the clinical context was in 1992 by Swayne, who reported on computer-assisted fusion of single-photon emission computed tomographic (SPECT) and computed tomographic (CT) images in localizing inflammatory processes in 10 patients(1). Image fusion of coronary CT angiography with cardiac perfusion MRI facilitated comprehensive assessment of functionally relevant coronary artery disease by the exact allocation of culprit coronary arterial stenosis to the corresponding myocardial perfusion defects, at a low radiation dose(9). In 2011, x-ray magnetic image fusion (XMRF) with cardiac MRI was performed on 23 patients with congenital heart disease during catheterization to demonstrate the feasibility of reducing radiation exposure and improving catheterization outcome(15). [...]2D-3D registration was performed with live fluoroscopic 2D image into the 3D dataset.