Ambient-Pix2PixGAN for Translating Medical Images from Noisy Data

Image-to-image translation is a common task in computer vision and has been rapidly increasing the impact on the field of medical imaging. Deep learning-based methods that employ conditional generative adversarial networks (cGANs), such as Pix2PixGAN, have been extensively explored to perform image-to-image translation tasks. However, when noisy medical image data are considered, such methods cannot be directly applied to produce clean images. Recently, an augmented GAN architecture named AmbientGAN has been proposed that can be trained on noisy measurement data to synthesize high-quality clean medical images. Inspired by AmbientGAN, in this work, we propose a new cGAN architecture, Ambient-Pix2PixGAN, for performing medical image-to-image translation tasks by use of noisy measurement data. Numerical studies that consider MRI-to-PET translation are conducted. Both traditional image quality metrics and task-based image quality metrics are employed to assess the proposed Ambient-Pix2PixGAN. It is demonstrated that our proposed Ambient-Pix2PixGAN can be successfully trained on noisy measurement data to produce high-quality translated images in target imaging modality.

Unsupervised Generation of Pseudo Normal PET from MRI with Diffusion Model for Epileptic Focus Localization

[$^{18}$F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) has emerged as a crucial tool in identifying the epileptic focus, especially in cases where magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) diagnosis yields indeterminate results. FDG PET can provide the metabolic information of glucose and help identify abnormal areas that are not easily found through MRI. However, the effectiveness of FDG PET-based assessment and diagnosis depends on the selection of a healthy control group. The healthy control group typically consists of healthy individuals similar to epilepsy patients in terms of age, gender, and other aspects for providing normal FDG PET data, which will be used as a reference for enhancing the accuracy and reliability of the epilepsy diagnosis. However, significant challenges arise when a healthy PET control group is unattainable. Yaakub \emph{et al.} have previously introduced a Pix2PixGAN-based method for MRI to PET translation. This method used paired MRI and FDG PET scans from healthy individuals for training, and produced pseudo normal FDG PET images from patient MRIs that are subsequently used for lesion detection. However, this approach requires a large amount of high-quality, paired MRI and PET images from healthy control subjects, which may not always be available. In this study, we investigated unsupervised learning methods for unpaired MRI to PET translation for generating pseudo normal FDG PET for epileptic focus localization. Two deep learning methods, CycleGAN and SynDiff, were employed, and we found that diffusion-based method achieved improved performance in accurately localizing the epileptic focus.

AmbientCycleGAN for Establishing Interpretable Stochastic Object Models Based on Mathematical Phantoms and Medical Imaging Measurements

Medical imaging systems that are designed for producing diagnostically informative images should be objectively assessed via task-based measures of image quality (IQ). Ideally, computation of task-based measures of IQ needs to account for all sources of randomness in the measurement data, including the variability in the ensemble of objects to be imaged. To address this need, stochastic object models (SOMs) that can generate an ensemble of synthesized objects or phantoms can be employed. Various mathematical SOMs or phantoms were developed that can interpretably synthesize objects, such as lumpy object models and parameterized torso phantoms. However, such SOMs that are purely mathematically defined may not be able to comprehensively capture realistic object variations. To establish realistic SOMs, it is desirable to use experimental data. An augmented generative adversarial network (GAN), AmbientGAN, was recently proposed for establishing SOMs from medical imaging measurements. However, it remains unclear to which extent the AmbientGAN-produced objects can be interpretably controlled. This work introduces a novel approach called AmbientCycleGAN that translates mathematical SOMs to realistic SOMs by use of noisy measurement data. Numerical studies that consider clustered lumpy background (CLB) models and real mammograms are conducted. It is demonstrated that our proposed method can stably establish SOMs based on mathematical models and noisy measurement data. Moreover, the ability of the proposed AmbientCycleGAN to interpretably control image features in the synthesized objects is investigated.