Validation and comparison of registration methods for free-breathing 4D lung-CT

We have compared and validated image registration methods with respect to the clinically relevant use-case of lung CT max-inhale to max-exhale registration. Four fundamentally different algorithms representing main approaches for image registration were compared using clinical images. Each algorithm was assigned to a different person with extensive working knowledge of its usage. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation is performed. Whereas the methods achieve similar results in target registration error, characteristic differences come to show by closer analysis of the displacement fields.