Computed tomography super-resolution using deep convolutional neural network

The objective of this study is to develop a convolutional neural network (CNN) for computed tomography (CT) image super-resolution. The network learns an end-to-end mapping between low (thick-slice thickness) and high (thin-slice thickness) resolution images using the modified U-Net. To verify the proposed method, we train and test the CNN using axially averaged data of existing thin-slice CT images as input and their middle slice as the label. Fifty-two CT studies are used as the CNN training set, and 13 CT studies are used as the test set. We perform five-fold cross-validation to confirm the performance consistency. Because all input and output images are used in two-dimensional slice format, the total number of slices for training the CNN is 7670. We assess the performance of the proposed method with respect to the resolution and contrast, as well as the noise properties. The CNN generates output images that are virtually equivalent to the ground truth. The most remarkable image-recovery improvement by the CNN is deblurring of boundaries of bone structures and air cavities. The CNN output yields an approximately 10% higher peak signal-tonoise ratio and lower normalized root mean square error than the input (thicker slices). The CNN output noise level is lower than the ground truth and equivalent to the iterative image reconstruction result. The proposed deep learning method is useful for both super-resolution and de-noising.