Aim: The Institute of Nuclear Medicine offers automated image registration services for partners via a DICOM server using an in-house developed image processing pipeline. During the development of BrainLOC software several utilities have been worked out to evaluate the automated regional analysis of spatial standardized MRI and PET data by using predefined region systems of more than 20 digitalized brain atlases. Our goal was to introduce a new service to support the automated region analysis of brain PET examinations for academic purposes.

Materials and Methods: We have used the MultiModal Medical Imaging software system to develop the main software components required by the automated regional analysis service: pre-defined functional and anatomical brain structures as part of the VOI database of the BrainLOC application; 3rd party (MNI, FSL) and in-house developed multimodal registration and standardization software; utilities for ROI analysis. We have also developed the DicomBBox software to receive and convert images, which is built on the basis of the DICOM server in our institute. Processing and monitoring services are available through the interfaces developed for the R+D web site of our institute.

Results: In contrast with our initial goals, a completely automated software system was developed to evaluate  regional analysis of brain PET data using customized regional definitions of various brain atlases. The user requesting this service could select regions from more than 20 brain atlases and for spatial standardization T1-weighted MRI or PET templates. The results of the analysis of the images received by our DICOM server can be accessed by email or through the web site of the institute. For validation 10 methionine-PET examinations were used. The standardization was carried out by the automated system and the fitted brain regions have been verified by two independent professionals. A nuclear medicine expert supervised the PET-MRI and a radiologist checked the CT-MRI fitting using the BrainLOC software.

Conclusion: By means of institutional infrastructure we have introduced a new service for clinical projects, which facilitates individual and population-based region analysis for institutes lacking the specific software and infrastructure. The service is available through our R+D web page and DICOM server.