Motion compensated digital subtraction angiography

Digital subtraction angiography, whether based on traditional X-ray or MR, su ers from patient motion artifacts. Until now, the usual remedy is to pixel shift by hand, or in some cases performing a global pixel shift semi-automatically. This is time consuming, and cannot handle rotations or local varying deformations over the image. We have developed a fully automatic algorithm that provides for motion compensation in the presence of large local deformations. Our motion compensation is very accurate for ordinary motions, including large rotations and deformations. It does not matter if the motions are irregular over time. For most images, it takes about a second per image to get adequate accuracy. The method is based on using the phase from lter banks of quadrature lters tuned in di erent directions and frequencies. Unlike traditional methods for optical ow and correlation, our method is more accurate and less susceptible to disturbing changes in the image, e.g. a moving contrast bolus. The implications for common practice are that radiologists' time can be signi cantly reduced in ordinary peripheral angiographies and that the number of retakes due to large or local motion artifacts will be much reduced.