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Accelerating Whole-Body Diffusion-weighted MRI with Deep Learning-based Denoising Image Filters
Konstantinos Zormpas-Petridis1, Nina Tunariu1, Andra Curcean1
1Division of Radiation Therapy and Imaging, The Institute of Cancer Research, 123 Old Brompton Rd, London SW7 3RP, England (K.Z.P., N.T., A.C., C.M., S.C., D.J.C., J.C.H., Y.J., D.M.K., M.D.B.); and Department of Radiology, The Royal Marsden National Health Service Foundation Trust, Surrey, England (N.T., A.C., C.M., S.C., J.C.H., D.M.K.).
Purpose:
To use deep learning to improve the image quality of subsampled images (number of acquisitions = 1 [NOA1]) to reduce whole-body diffusion-weighted MRI (WBDWI) acquisition times.
Materials And Methods:
Both retrospective and prospective patient groups were used to develop a deep learning-based denoising image filter (DNIF) model. For initial model training and validation, 17 patients with metastatic prostate cancer with acquired WBDWI NOA1 and NOA9 images (acquisition period, 2015-2017) were retrospectively included. An additional 22 prospective patients with advanced prostate cancer, myeloma, and advanced breast cancer were used for model testing (2019), and the radiologic quality of DNIF-processed NOA1 (NOA1-DNIF) images were compared with NOA1 images and clinical NOA16 images by using a three-point Likert scale (good, average, or poor; statistical significance was calculated by using a Wilcoxon signed ranked test). The model was also retrained and tested in 28 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) who underwent lung MRI (2015-2017) to demonstrate feasibility in other body regions.
Results:
The model visually improved the quality of NOA1 images in all test patients, with the majority of NOA1-DNIF and NOA16 images being graded as either "average" or "good" across all image-quality criteria. From validation data, the mean apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values within NOA1-DNIF images of bone disease deviated from those within NOA9 images by an average of 1.9% (range, 1.1%-2.6%). The model was also successfully applied in the context of MPM; the mean ADCs from NOA1-DNIF images of MPM deviated from those measured by using clinical-standard images (NOA12) by 3.7% (range, 0.2%-10.6%).
Conclusion:
Clinical-standard images were generated from subsampled images by using a DNIF.Keywords: Image Postprocessing, MR-Diffusion-weighted Imaging, Neural Networks, Oncology, Whole-Body Imaging, Supervised Learning, MR-Functional Imaging, Metastases, Prostate, Lung Supplemental material is available for this article. Published under a CC BY 4.0 license.
