Joint segmentation and groupwise registration of cardiac DCE MRI using sparse data representations

We propose a joint registration and segmentation method for cardiac perfusion images using robust PCA (RPCA) to decompose the time series into a low rank and sparse component. Registration maximizes the smoothness of the intensity signal in the low rank component. Segmentation minimizes the sparse component's pixel intensity difference with other pixels having the same label. B-splines are used to combine the registration and segmentation costs. Tests on real patient datasets show the improved registration and segmentation accuracy over conventional methods that perform them separately.