Marriage of CT and MRI for vulnerable plaque characterization

Abstract

Department of Radiology, University of Chicago, IL 60637, USA While CT, MRI, PET, SPECT and ultrasound have their well-defined roles for medical imaging, over the past decade multimodality systems, such as PET–CT and PET–MRI scanners, have become increasingly popular for sequential or contemporaneous data acquisition. However, these paired modalities impose limitations that may compromise our understanding of physiological processes relative to fine details and rapid changes driven by a beating heart. Not all pairs of tomographic scanners can be engineered closely together or within a single gantry, given the bulkiness of individual systems, such as CT and MRI scanners, and the conflict in imaging physics, such as rotating metallic parts for CT and magnetic fields for MRI. Recently, our group has been performing pilot studies on what is called omni-tomography [1]. This strategy is conceptualized based on interior tomography developed over the past 5 years [2]. By omni-tomography, we envision that the next stage of biomedical imaging will be the grand fusion of many tomographic modalities into a single gantry (‘all in one’) for simultaneous data acquisition of many complementary features (‘all at once’). Now, novel multifunctional probes, multi-/ coupled-physics modeling, high-technology engineering and advanced image reconstruction, especially interior tomography and compressive sensing, present new opportunities to peek into living biological systems noninvasively, systematically and concurrently. Building blocks are either available or emerging for the initial development of omni-tomography. As an inspiring case of omni-tomography, here we propose the first CT–MRI scanner for vulnerable plaque characterization, which is described as the ‘holy grail’ of cardiology [101].