3D surface rendering of images from multiple MR pulse sequences in the pre-operative evaluation of hepatic lesions

Purpose: To develop a method for making three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions of liver vessels and hepatic lesions from different MR data sets. Material and Methods: To reduce the time required for segmentation and reconstructions, we used T1, T2 and phase contrast angiography, optimised for liver, lesion and vessels respectively. Following segmentation and reconstruction, the different volumes were combined on the same workstation and presented to the surgeon. Results and Conclusion: Segmentation and reconstruction took 1-2 h. To be able to combine the volumes from the different data sets, certain criteria had to be fulfilled: a) the held of view had to be constant; b) the same volume had to be scanned every time which meant that the slice thickness and the number of slices could be adjusted as long as the volume covered was the same; and c) the positioning of each volume had to be identical between every scan. The resulting 3D reconstruction gave the surgeon a clear appreciation of the different lesions and their relation to the different liver segments in the pre-operative planning of hepatic resections.