High-Performance Motion Correction of Fetal MRI

Abstract

Fetal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) shows promising results for pre-natal diagnostics. The detection of potentially lifethreatening abnormalities in the fetus can be difficult with ultrasound alone. MRI is one of the few safe alternative imaging modalities in pregnancy. However, to date it has been limited by unpredictable fetal and maternal motion during acquisition. Motion between the acquisitions of individual slices of a 3D volume results in spatial inconsistencies that can be resolved by slice-to-volume reconstruction (SVR) methods to provide high quality 3D image data. Existing algorithms to solve this problem have evolved from very slow implementations targeting a single organ to general high-performance solutions to reconstruct the whole uterus. In this paper we give a brief overview over the current state-of-the art in fetal motion compensation methods and show currently emerging clinical applications of these techniques.