PalScDiff: A diffusion-based framework with progressive augmentation learning and semantic consistency for breast ultrasound tumor segmentation

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer diagnosis relies on accurate lesion segmentation in medical images. Automated computer-aided diagnosis reduces clinician workload and improves efficiency, but existing image segmentation methods face challenges in model performance and generalization. Objective: This study aims to develop a generative framework using a denoising diffusion model for efficient and accurate breast cancer lesion segmentation in medical images. Methods: We design a novel generative framework, PalScDiff, that leverages a denoising diffusion probabilistic model to reconstruct the label distribution for medical images, thereby enabling the sampling of diverse, plausible segmentation outcomes. Specifically, with the condition of the corresponding image, PalScDiff learns to estimate the masses region probability through denoising step by step. Furthermore, we design a Progressive Augmentation Learning strategy to incrementally handle segmentation challenges of irregular and blurred tumors. Moreover, multi-round sampling is employed to achieve robust breast mass segmentation. Results: Our experimental results show that PalScDiff outperforms established models such as U-Net and transformer-based alternatives, achieving an accuracy of 95.15%, precision of 79.74%, Dice coefficient of 77.61%, and Intersection over Union (IOU) of 81.51% . Conclusion: The proposed model demonstrates promising capabilities for accurate and efficient computer-aided segmentation of breast cancer.