Automatic Scan Plane Planning Method for Brain MRI

Xiaodong Tao¹, Sandeep Narendra Gupta¹

Consistent scan plane prescription for MRI is very important clinically for easy comparison of images across subjects and in serial evaluation of longitudinal exams. Typical workflow requires careful manual slice positioning and suffers from inter-operator variability. Existing automated methods use probabilistic atlases or segmentation of anatomic landmarks to align images. We present a novel scheme for registering brain images using an implicit symmetry axis determination. This algorithm is robust to asymmetry and large motion. We have incorporated this approach in a clinical MR system and demonstrated its usefulness in automatically obtaining consistent imaging planes across examinations irrespective of subject position.