A CT Denoising Neural Network with Image Properties Parameterization and Control.

A wide range of dose reduction strategies for x-ray computed tomography (CT) have been investigated. Recently, denoising strategies based on machine learning have been widely applied, often with impressive results, and breaking free from traditional noise-resolution trade-offs. However, since typical machine learning strategies provide a single denoised image volume, there is no user-tunable control of a particular trade-off between noise reduction and image properties (biases) of the denoised image. This is in contrast to traditional filtering and model-based processing that permits tuning of parameters for a level of noise control appropriate for the specific diagnostic task. In this work, we propose a novel neural network that includes a spatial-resolution parameter as additional input permits explicit control of the noise-bias trade-off. Preliminary results show the ability to control image properties through such parameterization as well as the possibility to tune such parameters for increased detectability in task-based evaluation.