Alignment of short axis and long axis cine cardiac MR images

Modern cardiac MRI exams usually contain cine acquisitions from three standardized, orthogonal views, ie. short axis (SA), long axis (LA) two-chamber and long axis four-chamber views. These images are acquired during different breath-holds introducing respiratory motion artefacts. Therefore, registration of SA and LA cine cardiac MR images is a preliminary, mandatory step for all applications using image information from different slices and views. We have developed two methods for the registration of SA images to LA images. Both methods improve the alignment of cardiac image data. Consequently, the result of a combined segmentation approach improves.