Construction of a biomechanical head and neck motion model as a guide to evaluation of deformable image registration

The use of deformable image registration methods in the context of adaptive radiotherapy leads to uncertainties in the simulation of the administered dose distributions during the treatment course. Evaluation of these methods is a prerequisite to decide if a plan adaptation will improve the individual treatment. Current approaches using manual references limit the validity of evaluation, especially for low-contrast regions. In particular, for the head and neck region, the highly flexible anatomy and low soft tissue contrast in control images pose a challenge to image registration and its evaluation. Biomechanical models promise to overcome this issue by providing anthropomorphic motion modelling of the patient. We introduce a novel biomechanical motion model for the generation and sampling of different postures of the head and neck anatomy. Motion propagation behaviour of the individual bones is defined by an underlying kinematic model. This model interconnects the bones by joints and thus is capable of providing a wide range of motion. Triggered by the motion of the individual bones, soft tissue deformation is described by an extended heterogeneous tissue model based on the chainmail approach. This extension, for the first time, allows the propagation of decaying rotations within soft tissue without the necessity for explicit tissue segmentation. Overall motion simulation and sampling of deformed CT scans including a basic noise model is achieved within 30 s. The proposed biomechanical motion model for the head and neck site generates displacement vector fields on a voxel basis, approximating arbitrary anthropomorphic postures of the patient. It was developed with the intention of providing input data for the evaluation of deformable image registration.