Abstract
BACKGROUND: Current medical image registration methods based on Transformer still encounter challenges, including significant local intensity differences and limited computational efficiency when dealing with three-dimensional (3D) computed tomography (CT) and cone beam CT (CBCT) images. These limitations hinder the precise alignment necessary for effective diagnosis and treatment planning. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop a novel method that overcomes these challenges by enhancing feature interaction and computational efficiency in 3D medical image registration. METHODS: This paper introduces a novel method that enhances feature interaction within Transformer by computing attention within resizable spatial perpendicular window (SPW). Additionally, it introduces a self-learning mapping control (SLMC) mechanism, which uses a mini convolutional neural network (CNN) to adaptively transform feature vectors into probability vectors. This approach is integrated into the UNet framework, resulting in the SPW-TransUNet. The effectiveness of the SPW-TransUNet is demonstrated through evaluations on two critical 3D medical imaging tasks: CT-CBCT registration and inter-CT registration. We utilized a range of evaluation metrics including Dice similarity coefficient (DICE), structural similarity index measure (SSIM), target registration error (TRE), and negative Jacobian percentage. The validation process involved comparative analysis against established baseline methods using statistical tests to ensure the robustness and reliability of our results. RESULTS: The proposed method demonstrated outstanding performance in the registration of 124 pairs of CT-CBCT lung images from 20 patients, achieving the lowest TRE of 2.16 mm and a minimal negative Jacobian of 0.126. It also recorded the highest SSIM and Dice coefficient of 86.87% and 88.28%, respectively. For the liver CT task involving 150 patients, the method achieved peak SSIM and DICE scores of 76.92% and 85.77%, respectively. Furthermore, ablation studies confirmed the effectiveness of the designed structural components. CONCLUSIONS: The SPW-TransUNet offers significant improvements in feature interaction and computational efficiency for medical image registration, providing an effective reference solution for patient and target localization in image-guided radiation therapy.