# RED: Residual Estimation Diffusion for Low-Dose PET Sinogram Reconstruction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05354 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.05354/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Medical imaging and segmentation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Nov 2024.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Medical imaging and segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/medical-imaging-and-segmentation/)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Virtual-mask Informed Prior for Sparse-view Dual-Energy CT Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.07753/) (2025)
- [FourierPET: Deep Fourier-based Unrolled Network for Low-count PET Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.11680/) (2026)
- [A Prior-Guided Joint Diffusion Model in Projection Domain for PET Tracer Conversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16733/) (2025)
- [FlowPET: Physics-Informed Symplectic Flow Matching for Low-Count PET Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.11104/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advances in diffusion models have demonstrated exceptional performance in generative tasks across vari-ous fields. In positron emission tomography (PET), the reduction in tracer dose leads to information loss in sino-grams. Using diffusion models to reconstruct missing in-formation can improve imaging quality. Traditional diffu-sion models effectively use Gaussian noise for image re-constructions. However, in low-dose PET reconstruction, Gaussian noise can worsen the already sparse data by introducing artifacts and inconsistencies. To address this issue, we propose a diffusion model named residual esti-mation diffusion (RED). From the perspective of diffusion mechanism, RED uses the residual between sinograms to replace Gaussian noise in diffusion process, respectively sets the low-dose and full-dose sinograms as the starting point and endpoint of reconstruction. This mechanism helps preserve the original information in the low-dose sinogram, thereby enhancing reconstruction reliability. From the perspective of data consistency, RED introduces a drift correction strategy to reduce accumulated prediction errors during the reverse process. Calibrating the inter-mediate results of reverse iterations helps maintain the data consistency and enhances the stability of reconstruc-tion process. Experimental results show that RED effec-tively improves the quality of low-dose sinograms as well as the reconstruction results. The code is available at: https://github.com/yqx7150/RED.