Visibility Enhancement of Lesion Regions in Chest X-Ray Images With Image Fidelity Preservation

X-ray image enhancement can aid a physician’s diagnosis by improving lesion visibility. This study proposes a chest X-ray image enhancement framework for enhancing lesion visibility while preserving image features. Our framework assesses the background signals, whereas conventional method...

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Main Authors: Ryoichi Ishikawa, Tomohisa Yuzawa, Taiki Fukiage, Masataka Kagesawa, Toru Watsuji, Takeshi Oishi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10838501/
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author Ryoichi Ishikawa
Tomohisa Yuzawa
Taiki Fukiage
Masataka Kagesawa
Toru Watsuji
Takeshi Oishi
author_facet Ryoichi Ishikawa
Tomohisa Yuzawa
Taiki Fukiage
Masataka Kagesawa
Toru Watsuji
Takeshi Oishi
author_sort Ryoichi Ishikawa
collection DOAJ
description X-ray image enhancement can aid a physician’s diagnosis by improving lesion visibility. This study proposes a chest X-ray image enhancement framework for enhancing lesion visibility while preserving image features. Our framework assesses the background signals, whereas conventional methods focus on the visibility of the global image. The proposed method predicts the image processing parameters that enhance the lesion signals via the inference neural network. The framework consists of an X-ray image enhancer and an enhanced model predictor for reference. The enhancer regressively estimates the processing parameters for enhancing the lesions using the inference network and processes the input X-ray image. As the inference network requires training, the model predictor computes the reference parameters that maximize the visibility of the lesions within a tolerable loss of fidelity using image pairs—with and without lesions. We created a synthesized dataset, with and without lesions, from healthy chest and phantom lesion X-ray images. The experiments show that after the proposed method was trained on 2000 images, it improved lesion visibility with an acceptable fidelity loss. We also performed pairwise comparisons and confirmed that trade-offs between fidelity loss and visibility gain were attained. A technique for improving lesion visibility while maintaining the fidelity of X-ray images was developed. This method enabled the enhancement of specific signals in the background. Various image processing methods that require parameters could be incorporated into this framework for many different applications.
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publishDate 2025-01-01
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spelling doaj-art-299cddfdcbdd4d379a0cb25556a3bd3b2025-01-24T00:01:16ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-0113110801109410.1109/ACCESS.2025.352848910838501Visibility Enhancement of Lesion Regions in Chest X-Ray Images With Image Fidelity PreservationRyoichi Ishikawa0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6904-3437Tomohisa Yuzawa1Taiki Fukiage2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4105-9442Masataka Kagesawa3Toru Watsuji4Takeshi Oishi5https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2010-2608Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, JapanInstitute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, JapanNTT Communication Science Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Kanagawa-ken, JapanInstitute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, JapanAir Water Inc., Osaka, JapanInstitute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, JapanX-ray image enhancement can aid a physician’s diagnosis by improving lesion visibility. This study proposes a chest X-ray image enhancement framework for enhancing lesion visibility while preserving image features. Our framework assesses the background signals, whereas conventional methods focus on the visibility of the global image. The proposed method predicts the image processing parameters that enhance the lesion signals via the inference neural network. The framework consists of an X-ray image enhancer and an enhanced model predictor for reference. The enhancer regressively estimates the processing parameters for enhancing the lesions using the inference network and processes the input X-ray image. As the inference network requires training, the model predictor computes the reference parameters that maximize the visibility of the lesions within a tolerable loss of fidelity using image pairs—with and without lesions. We created a synthesized dataset, with and without lesions, from healthy chest and phantom lesion X-ray images. The experiments show that after the proposed method was trained on 2000 images, it improved lesion visibility with an acceptable fidelity loss. We also performed pairwise comparisons and confirmed that trade-offs between fidelity loss and visibility gain were attained. A technique for improving lesion visibility while maintaining the fidelity of X-ray images was developed. This method enabled the enhancement of specific signals in the background. Various image processing methods that require parameters could be incorporated into this framework for many different applications.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10838501/Chest X-rayhuman perceptionX-ray image enhancement
spellingShingle Ryoichi Ishikawa
Tomohisa Yuzawa
Taiki Fukiage
Masataka Kagesawa
Toru Watsuji
Takeshi Oishi
Visibility Enhancement of Lesion Regions in Chest X-Ray Images With Image Fidelity Preservation
IEEE Access
Chest X-ray
human perception
X-ray image enhancement
title Visibility Enhancement of Lesion Regions in Chest X-Ray Images With Image Fidelity Preservation
title_full Visibility Enhancement of Lesion Regions in Chest X-Ray Images With Image Fidelity Preservation
title_fullStr Visibility Enhancement of Lesion Regions in Chest X-Ray Images With Image Fidelity Preservation
title_full_unstemmed Visibility Enhancement of Lesion Regions in Chest X-Ray Images With Image Fidelity Preservation
title_short Visibility Enhancement of Lesion Regions in Chest X-Ray Images With Image Fidelity Preservation
title_sort visibility enhancement of lesion regions in chest x ray images with image fidelity preservation
topic Chest X-ray
human perception
X-ray image enhancement
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10838501/
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AT taikifukiage visibilityenhancementoflesionregionsinchestxrayimageswithimagefidelitypreservation
AT masatakakagesawa visibilityenhancementoflesionregionsinchestxrayimageswithimagefidelitypreservation
AT toruwatsuji visibilityenhancementoflesionregionsinchestxrayimageswithimagefidelitypreservation
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