Fractal reconstruction of breast perfusion before and after hyperthermia treatments

Thermal modeling for hyperthermia breast patients can provide relevant information to better understand the temperatures achieved during treatment. However, human breast is much perfiased, making knowledge of the perfusion crucial to the accuracy of the temperature computations. It has been shown that the perfusion of blood in tumor tissue can be approximated using the relative perfusion index (RPI) determined from dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DE-MRI). It was also concluded that the 3D reconstruction of tumor perfusion can be performed using fractal interpolation fimctions (FIF). The technique used was called piecewise hidden variable fractal interpolation (PHVFI). Changes in the protocol parameters for the dynamic MRI sequences in breast patients allowed us to be able to acquire more spatial slices, hence the possibility to actually veriffiy the accuracy of the fi'actal interpolation. The interpolated slices were compared to the imaged slices in the original set. The accuracy of the interpolation was tested on post- hyperthermia treatment data set. The difference between the reconstruction and the original slice varied from 2 to 5%. Significantly, the fi'actal dimension of the interpolated slices is within 2-3% from the original images, thus preserving the fractality of the perfimion maps. The use of such a method becomes crucial when tumor size and imaging restrictions limits the number of spatial slices, requiring interpolation to fill the data between the slices Copyright © 2002 by ASME.

Duke Scholars

Author Oana Craciunescu Radiation Oncology

Author Shiva Kumar Das Radiation Oncology

Author Terence Z. Wong Radiology, Nuclear Medicine