提出新型损失函数,精准分割脑底动脉环中小血管
AG-TAL: Anatomically-Guided Topology-Aware Loss for Multiclass Segmentation of the Circle of Willis Using Large-Scale Multi-Center Datasets

- 设计三重感知损失,融合解剖先验与拓扑连通性约束
- 小血管分割精度提升1.05%-3.09%,跨数据集性能稳定
- 适用于神经退行性疾病影像生物标志物发现
准确分割脑底动脉环(CoW)的多类别血管对神经血管疾病管理至关重要,但受复杂血管拓扑结构和形态变异影响,现有深度学习方法常出现血管断裂与类间误判。当前拓扑损失在三维多类别场景中计算开销大。为此,本文提出解剖引导的拓扑感知损失(AG-TAL),并构建大规模多中心、统一标注的CoW数据集以支持鲁棒训练。AG-TAL结合半径感知Dice损失缓解小血管类别不平衡,利用组卷积的断点感知clDice损失高效保持局部连通性,以及基于解剖先验的邻接共现损失,强制相邻动脉间边界区分。5折交叉验证下,所有CoW血管平均Dice达80.85%,小血管提升1.05%-3.09%。在六个独立数据集上,整体Dice为74.46%-81.17%,小血管提升2.20%-9.98%。结果表明AG-TAL在多类别CoW血管识别上具有优势,且具备良好泛化能力。可靠性分析及阿尔茨海默病队列中的临床应用验证了其稳健性与作为影像生物标志物的潜力。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Accurate multiclass segmentation of the Circle of Willis (CoW) is essential for neurovascular disease management but remains challenging due to complex vascular topology and variable morphology. Existing deep learning methods often suffer from vascular discontinuities and inter-class misclassification, while current topological loss functions incur prohibitive computational costs in 3D multiclass settings. To address these limitations, we propose an Anatomically-Guided Topology-Aware Loss (AG-TAL) and introduce a large-scale, multi-center CoW dataset with unified annotations to facilitate robust model training. AG-TAL specifically integrates a radius-aware Dice loss to address class imbalance in small vessels, a breakage-aware clDice loss that utilizes group convolutions to efficiently preserve local connectivity, and an adjacency-aware co-occurrence loss that leverages anatomical priors to enforce distinct boundaries between neighboring arteries. Evaluated using 5-fold cross-validation, AG-TAL achieved an average Dice score of 80.85% for all CoW arteries, with small arteries notably higher by 1.05-3.09% compared to state-of-the-art methods. Across six independent datasets, the performance of AG-TAL achieved Dice scores ranging from 74.46% to 81.17% for all CoW arteries, with improvements of 2.20% to 9.98% for small arteries compared to other methods. This study demonstrates the superiority of AG-TAL in identifying multiclass CoW arteries and its ability to generalize well to multiple independent datasets. Furthermore, reliability analyses and clinical applications in an Alzheimer's disease cohort validate the AG-TAL's robustness and its potential for discovering imaging-based morphological biomarkers.
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