通过循环对比学习扩大小类支持区域,提升医学图像分类的不平衡问题
Recurrent Contrastive Learning for Imbalanced Medical Image Classification

- 利用历史特征记忆队列递归扩展尾部类支持区域
- 在三个数据集上显著优于主流基线方法
- 适合处理疾病发病率不均的医学影像分类任务
医学图像分类常因疾病发生率差异导致类别不平衡。现有方法如类别重采样和损失加权主要优化观测特征分布内的学习,但未显式扩大尾部类别的潜在支持区域,导致尾部类表示过于紧凑,易被头部类侵占,引发决策边界偏差。本文提出循环对比学习(RCL)以应对医学图像分类中的不平衡问题。RCL通过跨训练阶段重复利用历史特征状态,逐步扩展尾部类的支持区域。具体地,采用DINOv3结合LoRA适配器作为主干网络,生成鲁棒特征嵌入;设计时间记忆队列(TMQ)保存各训练阶段的全局特征,为对比学习提供多样化参考;基于TMQ构建时间锚点(TARs),在尾部类周围形成锚点场,扩大其支持区域,抑制头部类侵占,增强类别间分离性。在三个不平衡医学数据集上的大量实验表明,RCL持续优于强基线模型。代码已公开于https://github.com/dndins/RCL。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Medical image classification often suffers from class imbalance due to the inherent disparities in disease incidence. Existing approaches, such as class resampling and loss reweighting, mainly improve learning within the observed feature distribution, but do not explicitly enlarge the latent support region of tail classes. As a result, tail-class representations remain overly compact and are easily encroached upon by head classes, leading to biased decision boundaries. In this work, we propose Recurrent Contrastive Learning (RCL) for imbalanced medical image classification. RCL progressively expands the support region of tail classes by recurrently reusing historical feature states across training phases. Specifically, we adopt DINOv3 with LoRA adapters as the backbone to provide robust feature embeddings. We then devise a Temporal Memory Queue (TMQ) to preserve corpus-level features across training phases and provide diversified global references for contrastive learning. Based on TMQ, we construct Temporal Anchors (TARs) to form an anchor field around tail classes. This field enlarges the support region of tail classes, suppresses head-class encroachment, and improves inter-class separation. Extensive experiments on three imbalanced medical datasets demonstrate that RCL achieves consistent improvements over strong baselines. The code is available at https://github.com/dndins/RCL.
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