Elimination of biological and physical artifacts in abdomen and brain computed tomography procedures using filtering techniques

INTRODUCTION: Medical images are usually affected by biological and physical artifacts or noise, which reduces image quality and hence poses difficulties in visual analysis, interpretation and thus requires higher doses and increased radiographs repetition rate. OBJECTIVES: This study aims at assessing image quality during CT abdomen and brain examinations using filtering techniques as well as estimating the radiogenic risk associated with CT abdomen and brain examinations. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data were collected from the Radiology Department at Royal Care International (RCI) Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan. The study included 100 abdominal CT images and 100 brain CT images selected from adult patients. Filters applied are namely: Mean filter, Gaussian filter, Median filter and Minimum filter. In this study, image quality after denoising is measured based on the Mean Squared Error (MSE), Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), and the Structural Similarity Index Metric (SSIM). RESULTS: The results show that the images quality parameters become higher after applications of filters. Median filter showed improved image quality as interpreted by the measured parameters: PSNR and SSIM, and it is thus considered as a better filter for removing the noise from all other applied filters. DISCUSSION: The noise removed by the different filters applied to the CT images resulted in enhancing high quality images thereby effectively revealing the important details of the images without increasing the patients’ risks from higher doses. CONCLUSIONS: Filtering and image reconstruction techniques not only reduce the dose and thus the radiation risks, but also enhances high quality imaging which allows better diagnosis.