Novel noise reduction filter for improving visibility of early computed tomography signs of hyperacute stroke: evaluation of the filter's performance—preliminary clinical experience

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of a novel noise reduction filter for improving the visibility of early computed tomography (CT) signs of hyperacute stroke on nonenhanced CT images. Fourteen patients with a middle cerebral artery occlusion within 4.5 h after onset were evaluated. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the processed images with the noise reduction filter and that of original images were measured. Two neuroradiologists visually rated all the processed and original images on the visibility of normal and abnormal gray-white matter interfaces. The SNR value of the processed images was approximately eight times as high as that of the original images, and a 87% reduction of noise was achieved using this technique. For the visual assessment, the results showed that the visibility of normal gray-white matter interface and that of the loss of the gray-white matter interface were significantly improved using the proposed method (P < 0.05). The noise reduction filter proposed in the present study has the potential to improve the visibility of early CT signs of hyperacute stroke on nonenhanced CT images.