arXiv AI
Aug 24

Consistency Models for Fast MRI Reconstruction Using Regularization by Denoising

The paper introduces CM-RED, a fast MRI reconstruction method that combines a pretrained consistency model with the regularization by denoising framework. By integrating controlled noise injection into accelerated proximal gradient updates, CM-RED achieves high‑quality reconstructions on fastMRI knee and brain datasets with only four network function evaluations. It consistently outperforms existing diffusion‑ and consistency‑based approaches in quantitative metrics, visual fidelity, and robustness to hyperparameter changes.

By Merve G\"ulle, Junno Yun, Ya\c{s}ar Utku Al\c{c}alar, Mehmet Ak\c{c}akaya
arXiv Computer Vision
Aug 27

UltraPIPS: Improving model perception in B-mode ultrasound with foundation models

UltraPIPS introduces domain‑specific foundation models for measuring perceptual similarity in B‑mode ultrasound images. The study shows that ultrasound‑trained LPIPS backbones better correlate with downstream tasks such as classification, segmentation, and reconstruction than natural‑image or general medical models. Optimizing LPIPS loss with an ultrasound backbone yields a strong balance between reconstruction quality and realism, and the authors provide an open‑source library for these metrics.

By Tal Grutman, Tali Ilovitsh
arXiv AI
Aug 25

SAS: Segment Anything Small for Ultrasound -- A Non-Generative Data Augmentation Technique for Robust Deep Learning in Ultrasound Imaging

The paper introduces Segment Anything Small (SAS), a data‑augmentation method that improves deep‑learning segmentation of small anatomical structures in ultrasound images. SAS uses two transformations: resizing and embedding organ thumbnails into a black background to vary organ scale, and adding noise to regions of interest to mimic tissue texture variability. Experiments on one internal and five external datasets show Dice score gains up to 0.35, with an average improvement of 0.16, and demonstrate that SAS enhances model robustness and generalizability without adding hallucinations or artifacts.

By Danielle L. Ferreira, Ahana Gangopadhyay, Hsi-Ming Chang, Ravi Soni, Gopal Avinash