用弱监督方法仅靠框框就能精准分割乳腺超声结节,提升临床效率。
Flip Learning: Weakly Supervised Erase to Segment Nodules in Breast Ultrasound
- 多智能体强化学习通过擦除框内区域实现分割,无需精细标注。
- 在乳腺超声数据集上达到接近全监督的分割精度。
- 适合医疗影像标注成本高、样本少的场景,尤其适用于超声检查。
2D乳腺超声(BUS)和3D自动化乳腺超声(ABUS)中结节的精确分割对临床诊断与治疗规划至关重要。开发自动化分割系统可减少人工依赖,加快分析速度。与全监督学习相比,弱监督分割(WSS)能简化繁琐的标注流程。然而,现有WSS方法因依赖不准确的激活图或低效的伪掩码生成算法,难以实现精准分割。本文提出一种基于多智能体强化学习的新型弱监督分割框架——Flip Learning,仅需2D/3D边界框即可实现精准分割。具体而言,多个智能体协同从框内擦除目标区域以触发分类标签翻转,擦除区域即为预测分割掩码。主要贡献包括:(1) 采用超像素/超体素编码标准化环境,捕捉边界先验并加速学习;(2) 设计三类奖励机制,包括分类得分奖励和两类强度分布奖励,精准引导擦除过程,避免过分割与欠分割;(3) 引入渐进式课程学习策略,使智能体逐步应对更复杂挑战,提升学习效率。在大规模自建BUS与ABUS数据集上广泛验证,Flip Learning优于当前主流WSS方法及基础模型,性能媲美全监督算法。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Accurate segmentation of nodules in both 2D breast ultrasound (BUS) and 3D automated breast ultrasound (ABUS) is crucial for clinical diagnosis and treatment planning. Therefore, developing an automated system for nodule segmentation can enhance user independence and expedite clinical analysis. Unlike fully-supervised learning, weakly-supervised segmentation (WSS) can streamline the laborious and intricate annotation process. However, current WSS methods face challenges in achieving precise nodule segmentation, as many of them depend on inaccurate activation maps or inefficient pseudo-mask generation algorithms. In this study, we introduce a novel multi-agent reinforcement learning-based WSS framework called Flip Learning, which relies solely on 2D/3D boxes for accurate segmentation. Specifically, multiple agents are employed to erase the target from the box to facilitate classification tag flipping, with the erased region serving as the predicted segmentation mask. The key contributions of this research are as follows: (1) Adoption of a superpixel/supervoxel-based approach to encode the standardized environment, capturing boundary priors and expediting the learning process. (2) Introduction of three meticulously designed rewards, comprising a classification score reward and two intensity distribution rewards, to steer the agents' erasing process precisely, thereby avoiding both under- and over-segmentation. (3) Implementation of a progressive curriculum learning strategy to enable agents to interact with the environment in a progressively challenging manner, thereby enhancing learning efficiency. Extensively validated on the large in-house BUS and ABUS datasets, our Flip Learning method outperforms state-of-the-art WSS methods and foundation models, and achieves comparable performance as fully-supervised learning algorithms.
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