Multi-modality super-resolution loss for GAN-based super-resolution of clinical CT images using micro CT image database

This paper newly introduces multi-modality loss function for GAN-based super-resolution that can maintain image structure and intensity on unpaired training dataset of clinical CT and micro CT volumes. Precise non-invasive diagnosis of lung cancer mainly utilizes 3D multidetector computed-tomography (CT) data. On the other hand, we can take micro CT images of resected lung specimen in 50 micro meter or higher resolution. However, micro CT scanning cannot be applied to living human imaging. For obtaining highly detailed information such as cancer invasion area from pre-operative clinical CT volumes of lung cancer patients, super-resolution (SR) of clinical CT volumes to $\mu$CT level might be one of substitutive solutions. While most SR methods require paired low- and high-resolution images for training, it is infeasible to obtain precisely paired clinical CT and micro CT volumes. We aim to propose unpaired SR approaches for clincial CT using micro CT images based on unpaired image translation methods such as CycleGAN or UNIT. Since clinical CT and micro CT are very different in structure and intensity, direct application of GAN-based unpaired image translation methods in super-resolution tends to generate arbitrary images. Aiming to solve this problem, we propose new loss function called multi-modality loss function to maintain the similarity of input images and corresponding output images in super-resolution task. Experimental results demonstrated that the newly proposed loss function made CycleGAN and UNIT to successfully perform SR of clinical CT images of lung cancer patients into micro CT level resolution, while original CycleGAN and UNIT failed in super-resolution.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Micro CT Image-Assisted Cross Modality Super-Resolution of Clinical CT Images Utilizing Synthesized Training Dataset

This paper proposes a novel, unsupervised super-resolution (SR) approach for performing the SR of a clinical CT into the resolution level of a micro CT ($\mu$CT). The precise non-invasive diagnosis of lung cancer typically utilizes clinical CT data. Due to the resolution limitations of clinical CT (about $0.5 \times 0.5 \times 0.5$ mm$^3$), it is difficult to obtain enough pathological information such as the invasion area at alveoli level. On the other hand, $\mu$CT scanning allows the acquisition of volumes of lung specimens with much higher resolution ($50 \times 50 \times 50 \mu {\rm m}^3$ or higher). Thus, super-resolution of clinical CT volume may be helpful for diagnosis of lung cancer. Typical SR methods require aligned pairs of low-resolution (LR) and high-resolution (HR) images for training. Unfortunately, obtaining paired clinical CT and $\mu$CT volumes of human lung tissues is infeasible. Unsupervised SR methods are required that do not need paired LR and HR images. In this paper, we create corresponding clinical CT-$\mu$CT pairs by simulating clinical CT images from $\mu$CT images by modified CycleGAN. After this, we use simulated clinical CT-$\mu$CT image pairs to train an SR network based on SRGAN. Finally, we use the trained SR network to perform SR of the clinical CT images. We compare our proposed method with another unsupervised SR method for clinical CT images named SR-CycleGAN. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can successfully perform SR of clinical CT images of lung cancer patients with $\mu$CT level resolution, and quantitatively and qualitatively outperformed conventional method (SR-CycleGAN), improving the SSIM (structure similarity) form 0.40 to 0.51