Compromised Accuracy of Stereotactic Target Delineation Associated with Computed Tomography-Based Frame Registration: A Comparative Analysis of Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Computed Tomography Fusion.

Introduction: Recent advancements in stereotactic neurosurgical techniques have become increasingly reliant on image-based target planning. We devised a case-phantom comparative analysis to evaluate the target registration errors arising during the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-computed tomography (CT) image fusion process.

Methods: For subjects whose preoperative MRI and CT images both contained fiducial frame localizers, we investigated discrepancies in target coordinates derived from frame registration based on either MRI or CT.