MR Enterography Image Fusion in Small Bowel Analysis

In the last years, the use of magnetic resonance enterography to evaluate inflammatory bowel diseases has become a mainstay, thanks to its non-ionizing nature, and to the advent of faster sequences that are less sensitive to motion artifacts. In this work we present a novel multimodal image merging framework able to combine the detailed structural information, and the small bowel motility provided by the SSFSE and the FIESTA sequence, respectively. Once the breathing motion has been eliminated via non-rigid B-spline based registration, we create a personalized peristaltic activity map from the FIESTA sequence using optical flow analysis. Defining a new multimodal similarity measure, the two nearest sets of FIESTA frames are projected over the SSFSE slices, leading to a new image that provides specific structural and functional information of the patient simultaneously. The practical utility of these new images has been successfully evaluated in a preliminary study with 13 cases, showing its potential for planning small bowel interventions, and patients' diagnosis and follow up.