Quantitative Comparison of Deep Learning-Based Image Reconstruction Methods for Low-Dose and Sparse-Angle CT Applications
Johannes Leuschner, Maximilian Schmidt, Poulami Somanya Ganguly, Vladyslav Andriiashen, Sophia Bethany Coban, Alexander Denker, Dominik Bauer, Amir Hadjifaradji, Kees Joost Batenburg, Peter Maaß, Maureen van Eijnatten
Abstract
The reconstruction of computed tomography (CT) images is an active area of research. Following the rise of deep learning methods, many data-driven models have been proposed in recent years. In this work, we present the results of a data challenge that we organized, bringing together algorithm experts from different institutes to jointly work on quantitative evaluation of several data-driven methods on two large, public datasets during a ten day sprint. We focus on two applications of CT, namely, low-dose CT and sparse-angle CT. This enables us to fairly compare different methods using standardized settings. As a general result, we observe that the deep learning-based methods are able to improve the reconstruction quality metrics in both CT applications while the top performing methods show only minor differences in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity (SSIM). We further discuss a number of other important criteria that should be taken into account when selecting a method, such as the availability of training data, the knowledge of the physical measurement model and the reconstruction speed.