Using wavelets for smoothing and denoising gated blood pool images

This paper presents a method of wavelet application for the denoising of gated blood pool image series. Our method is based on the transformation of image series into periodical 1D signal followed by the application of 1D wavelets. We used visual analysis of resulting images, Fourier analysis, analysis of gradient images and analysis of time-activity curves to compare the performances of the method presented and the "classical" image-by-image 2D wavelet spatial smoothing. Our results showed that the series smoothing by ID wavelets may be a good alternative to 2D wavelet smoothing and may offer more accurate image denoising. We suggest that after validation on a statistically sufficient number of patients, the method presented can be easily introduced and used in routine nuclear cardiology practice.