Imaging error reduction in radial cine-MRI with deep learning-based intra-frame motion compensation

Abstract

Objective: Radial cine-MRI allows for sliding window reconstruction at nearly arbitrary frame rate, promising high-speed imaging for intra-fractional motion monitoring in MRgRT. However, motion within the reconstruction window may determine the location of the reconstructed target to deviate from the true real-time position (target positioning errors), particularly in cases of fast breathing or for anatomical structures affected by the heartbeat. In this work, we present a proof-of-concept study aiming to enhance radial cine-MR imaging by implementing deep-learning-based intra-frame motion compensation techniques.
Approach: A novel network (TransSin-UNet) was proposed to continuously estimate the final-position image of the target, corresponding to end of the frame acquisition. Within the radial k-space reconstruction window, the spatial-temporal dependencies among the sinogram representation of the spokes were modeled by a transformer encoder subnetwork, followed by a UNet subnetwork operating in the spatial domain for pixel-level fine-tuning. By simulating motion-dependent radial sampling with (tiny) golden angles, we generated datasets from 25 4D digital anthropomorphic lung cancer phantoms. The network was then trained and extensively evaluated across datasets characterized by varying azimuthal radial profile increments.
Main Results: The method required additional 4.8ms per frame over the conventional approach involving direct image reconstruction with motion-corrupted spokes. TransSin-UNet outperformed architectures relying solely on transformer encoders or UNets across all the comparative evaluations, leading to a noticeable enhancement in image quality and target positioning accuracy. The normalized root mean-squared error (NRMSE) decreased by 50% from the initial value of 0.188 on average, whereas the mean Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of the gross tumor volume (GTV) increased from 85.1% to 96.2% in the investigated cases. Furthermore, the final-positions of anatomical structures undergoing substantial intra-frame deformations were precisely derived.
Significance: The proposed approach enables an effective intra-frame motion compensation, offering an opportunity to reduce errors in radial cine-MR imaging for real-time motion management.