The role of image fusion in diagnostic imaging for stereotactic neurosurgery and radiosurgery/stereotactic radiotherapy

In general, image fusion quality depends on the used data sets being determined by the performance of the imaging systems resp. the scan protocols. Powerful image fusion systems are capable to superimpose various CT and MRI data sets, in some cases PET, SPECT and fMRT data sets, too [5, 6, 7, 9, 13]. The respective data sets must be acquired in accordance to the software requirements and transferred lossless to the workstation via LAN or by means of a CD-ROM.