# Learnable Total Variation with Lambda Mapping for Low-Dose CT Denoising

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10500 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.10500/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 14 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Beyond a Gaussian Denoiser: Residual Learning of Deep CNN for Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03981/) (2016)
- [Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Inverse Problems in Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.03679/) (2016)
- [MoDL: Model Based Deep Learning Architecture for Inverse Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.02862/) (2017)
- [Learned Primal-dual Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06474/) (2017)
- [Low-Dose CT with a Residual Encoder-Decoder Convolutional Neural Network (RED-CNN)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.00288/) (2017)
- [Learning Regularization Parameter-Maps for Variational Image Reconstruction using Deep Neural Networks and Algorithm Unrolling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.05888/) (2023)
- [Space-Variant Total Variation boosted by learning techniques in few-view tomographic imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16900/) (2024)
- [Adaptive Weighted Total Variation boosted by learning techniques in few-view tomographic imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.09845/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While Total Variation (TV) excels in noise reduction and edge preservation, its reliance on a scalar regularization parameter limits adaptivity. In this study, we present a Learnable Total Variation (LTV) framework coupling an unrolled TV solver with a LambdaNet that predicts a per-pixel regularization map. The proposed framework is trained end-to-end to optimize reconstruction and regularization jointly, yielding spatially adaptive smoothing. Experiments on the DeepLesion dataset, using realistic LoDoPaB-CT simulation, show consistent gains over classical TV and FBP+U-Net, achieving up to +3.7 dB PSNR and 8% relative SSIM improvement. LTV provides an interpretable alternative to black-box CNNs for low-dose CT denoising.