Leveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma

Abstract In this paper we present a deep learning segmentation approach to classify and quantify the two most prevalent primary liver cancers – hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma – from hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained whole slide images. While semantic segmentation...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Miriam Hägele, Johannes Eschrich, Lukas Ruff, Maximilian Alber, Simon Schallenberg, Adrien Guillot, Christoph Roderburg, Frank Tacke, Frederick Klauschen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2024-10-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-75256-w
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1850203760981180416
author Miriam Hägele
Johannes Eschrich
Lukas Ruff
Maximilian Alber
Simon Schallenberg
Adrien Guillot
Christoph Roderburg
Frank Tacke
Frederick Klauschen
author_facet Miriam Hägele
Johannes Eschrich
Lukas Ruff
Maximilian Alber
Simon Schallenberg
Adrien Guillot
Christoph Roderburg
Frank Tacke
Frederick Klauschen
author_sort Miriam Hägele
collection DOAJ
description Abstract In this paper we present a deep learning segmentation approach to classify and quantify the two most prevalent primary liver cancers – hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma – from hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained whole slide images. While semantic segmentation of medical images typically requires costly pixel-level annotations by domain experts, there often exists additional information which is routinely obtained in clinical diagnostics but rarely utilized for model training. We propose to leverage such weak information from patient diagnoses by deriving complementary labels that indicate to which class a sample cannot belong to. To integrate these labels, we formulate a complementary loss for segmentation. Motivated by the medical application, we demonstrate for general segmentation tasks that including additional patches with solely weak complementary labels during model training can significantly improve the predictive performance and robustness of a model. On the task of diagnostic differentiation between hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, we achieve a balanced accuracy of 0.91 (CI 95%: 0.86-0.95) at case level for 165 hold-out patients. Furthermore, we also show that leveraging complementary labels improves the robustness of segmentation and increases performance at case level.
format Article
id doaj-art-d08e9148e45f44629cc40f3db86efa21
institution OA Journals
issn 2045-2322
language English
publishDate 2024-10-01
publisher Nature Portfolio
record_format Article
series Scientific Reports
spelling doaj-art-d08e9148e45f44629cc40f3db86efa212025-08-20T02:11:25ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222024-10-0114111310.1038/s41598-024-75256-wLeveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomaMiriam Hägele0Johannes Eschrich1Lukas Ruff2Maximilian Alber3Simon Schallenberg4Adrien Guillot5Christoph Roderburg6Frank Tacke7Frederick Klauschen8Machine learning group, Technische Universität BerlinDepartment of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Charité Universitätsmedizin BerlinAignostics GmbHAignostics GmbHInstitute of Pathology, Charité Universitätsmedizin BerlinDepartment of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Charité Universitätsmedizin BerlinClinic for Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Medical Faculty of Heinrich Heine University DüsseldorfDepartment of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Charité Universitätsmedizin BerlinBIFOLD - Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and DataAbstract In this paper we present a deep learning segmentation approach to classify and quantify the two most prevalent primary liver cancers – hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma – from hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained whole slide images. While semantic segmentation of medical images typically requires costly pixel-level annotations by domain experts, there often exists additional information which is routinely obtained in clinical diagnostics but rarely utilized for model training. We propose to leverage such weak information from patient diagnoses by deriving complementary labels that indicate to which class a sample cannot belong to. To integrate these labels, we formulate a complementary loss for segmentation. Motivated by the medical application, we demonstrate for general segmentation tasks that including additional patches with solely weak complementary labels during model training can significantly improve the predictive performance and robustness of a model. On the task of diagnostic differentiation between hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, we achieve a balanced accuracy of 0.91 (CI 95%: 0.86-0.95) at case level for 165 hold-out patients. Furthermore, we also show that leveraging complementary labels improves the robustness of segmentation and increases performance at case level.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-75256-w
spellingShingle Miriam Hägele
Johannes Eschrich
Lukas Ruff
Maximilian Alber
Simon Schallenberg
Adrien Guillot
Christoph Roderburg
Frank Tacke
Frederick Klauschen
Leveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
Scientific Reports
title Leveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
title_full Leveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
title_fullStr Leveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
title_full_unstemmed Leveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
title_short Leveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
title_sort leveraging weak complementary labels enhances semantic segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-75256-w
work_keys_str_mv AT miriamhagele leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma
AT johanneseschrich leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma
AT lukasruff leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma
AT maximilianalber leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma
AT simonschallenberg leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma
AT adrienguillot leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma
AT christophroderburg leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma
AT franktacke leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma
AT frederickklauschen leveragingweakcomplementarylabelsenhancessemanticsegmentationofhepatocellularcarcinomaandintrahepaticcholangiocarcinoma