Deep Learning on Misaligned Dual-Energy Chest X-ray Images Using Paired Cycle-Consistent Generative Adversarial Networks

Abstract

Dual-energy subtraction (DES) chest X-ray images (CXRs) are often affected by motion artifacts resulting from patients' voluntary or involuntary movements, even in clinical settings. Additionally, the mediastinum and upper abdominal regions in low-energy (LE) CXRs are susceptible to signal insufficiency due to inadequate input photon numbers. Current image processing techniques for removing motion artifacts and statistical noise from DES-CXRs are insufficient, and potential algorithms for these tasks remain largely unexplored. We propose a framework based on paired cycle-consistency adversarial generative networks to effectively remove motion artifacts and statistical noise from DES-CXRs. The proposed method incorporates ensemble discriminators, differentiable augmentation, anti-aliased convolution layers, and a basic 8-layer U-Net generator. This method was trained and tested using a clinical image dataset comprising data of 600 examinations of individuals who underwent dual-energy chest X-ray imaging for diagnostic purposes, using a sixfold cross-validation approach. It demonstrated a remarkable improvement in motion artifact suppression in terms of an analysis of full width at the 10-percent maximum improved from 0.216 ± 0.0720 to 0.200 ± 0.0783 for the left lung region of interests including the cardiac region. Furthermore, it outperformed the method in a previous study in terms of a peak signal-to-noise ratio of 50.7 ± 3.68, structural similarity index of 0.997 ± 0.0152 for LE images, and Fréchet inception distance of 85.0 ± 3.52 for bone-suppressed DES images. The proposed method significantly outperforms existing techniques for removing motion artifacts and statistical noise and shows strong potential for clinical applications in chest X-ray imaging.

Keywords: Chest X-ray; Cycle-consistent generative adversarial networks; Deep learning; Dual-energy subtraction; Generative adversarial networks; Motion artifacts.