# A Machine-learning Based Initialization for Joint Statistical Iterative Dual-energy CT with Application to Proton Therapy

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.00109 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.00109/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 8 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Jul 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [An Online Plug-and-Play Algorithm for Regularized Image Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.04693/) (2018)
- [Model based learning for accelerated, limited-view 3D photoacoustic tomography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.09832/) (2017)
- [Learned reconstructions for practical mask-based lensless imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.11502/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Dual-energy CT (DECT) has been widely investigated to generate more informative and more accurate images in the past decades. For example, Dual-Energy Alternating Minimization (DEAM) algorithm achieves sub-percentage uncertainty in estimating proton stopping-power mappings from experimental 3-mm collimated phantom data. However, elapsed time of iterative DECT algorithms is not clinically acceptable, due to their low convergence rate and the tremendous geometry of modern helical CT scanners. A CNN-based initialization method is introduced to reduce the computational time of iterative DECT algorithms. DEAM is used as an example of iterative DECT algorithms in this work. The simulation results show that our method generates denoised images with greatly improved estimation accuracy for adipose, tonsils, and muscle tissue. Also, it reduces elapsed time by approximately 5-fold for DEAM to reach the same objective function value for both simulated and real data.