Deep Learning Architectures for Medical Image Denoising: A Comparative Study of CNN-DAE, CADTra, and DCMIEDNet

Abstract

Medical imaging modalities are inherently susceptible to noise contamination that degrades diagnostic utility and clinical assessment accuracy. This paper presents a comprehensive comparative evaluation of three state-of-the-art deep learning architectures for MRI brain image denoising: CNN-DAE, CADTra, and DCMIEDNet. We systematically evaluate these models across multiple Gaussian noise intensities ($\sigma = 10, 15, 25$) using the Figshare MRI Brain Dataset. Our experimental results demonstrate that DCMIEDNet achieves superior performance at lower noise levels, with PSNR values of $32.921 \pm 2.350$ dB and $30.943 \pm 2.339$ dB for $\sigma = 10$ and $15$ respectively. However, CADTra exhibits greater robustness under severe noise conditions ($\sigma = 25$), achieving the highest PSNR of $27.671 \pm 2.091$ dB. All deep learning approaches significantly outperform traditional wavelet-based methods, with improvements ranging from 5-8 dB across tested conditions. This study establishes quantitative benchmarks for medical image denoising and provides insights into architecture-specific strengths for varying noise intensities.