Tracing of vessels is one of the most fundamental techniques in a computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) scheme for vascular systems. A major challenge of methods for tracing vessels is to trace vessels robustly against noise, vessel branching, vessel size changes, and curved vessels, because those factors often lead to errors in tracing. Among them, the robustness against vessel size changes is espec Read more...

We developed a supervised nonlinear filter based on an artificial neural network (ANN), called a “neural filter,” for reduction of quantum noise in coronary angiograms. The neural filter can be trained with input images and the corresponding teaching images. To learn the relationship between low-dose and high-dose x-ray images, we created simulated low-dose angiograms from actual high-dose Read more...

We evaluated our virtual dual-energy radiography technique based on a massive-training artificial neural network (MTANN) in the improvement of the conspicuity of nodules in chest radiographs. To do this, we used a validation test database consisting of 118 chest radiographs with pulmonary nodules and an independent test database consisting of 136 digitized screen-film chest radiographs with 136 Read more...

A major challenge in computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) schemes for lung nodule detection in multi-detector-row CT (MDCT) is to reduce false positives (FPs) while maintaining a high sensitivity level. Our purpose in this study was to develop a three-dimensional (3D) massive-training artificial neural network (MTANN) for reduction of FPs. To process quasi-isotropic voxels in the 3D MDCT volume, we Read more...