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Not-so-supervised: a survey of semi-supervised, multi-instance, and transfer learning in medical image analysis

arXiv 1804.06353 ↗First posted 17 Apr 2018cs.CVcited by 178

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Abstract (arXiv)

Machine learning (ML) algorithms have made a tremendous impact in the field of medical imaging. While medical imaging datasets have been growing in size, a challenge for supervised ML algorithms that is frequently mentioned is the lack of annotated data. As a result, various methods which can learn with less/other types of supervision, have been proposed. We review semi-supervised, multiple instance, and transfer learning in medical imaging, both in diagnosis/detection or segmentation tasks. We also discuss connections between these learning scenarios, and opportunities for future research.

Key facts. Cited by 178 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 17 Apr 2018.

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Citing papers per year: 2021: 49; 2022: 35; 2023: 34; 2024: 23; 2025: 25; 2026: 12.

178 papers.

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  1. 2021Domain Adaptation for Medical Image Analysis: A Surveycited by 351
  2. 2021Big Self-Supervised Models Advance Medical Image Classificationcited by 320
  3. 2022Transformers in Medical Imaging: A Surveycited by 245
  4. 2021Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) in deep learning-based medical image analysiscited by 147
  5. 2021Recent advances and clinical applications of deep learning in medical image analysiscited by 104
  6. 2021Multi-modal Understanding and Generation for Medical Images and Text via Vision-Language Pre-Trainingcited by 96
  7. 2023Federated Learning for Medical Image Analysis: A Surveycited by 77
  8. 2022Learning with Limited Annotations: A Survey on Deep Semi-Supervised Learning for Medical Image Segmentationcited by 74
  9. 2021Graph-Based Deep Learning for Medical Diagnosis and Analysis: Past, Present and Futurecited by 67
  10. 2023LVM-Med: Learning Large-Scale Self-Supervised Vision Models for Medical Imaging via Second-order Graph Matchingcited by 60
  11. 2021Source-Free Domain Adaptation for Image Segmentationcited by 45
  12. 2021Federated Semi-supervised Medical Image Classification via Inter-client Relation Matchingcited by 42
38 more
  1. 2022Bi-directional Weakly Supervised Knowledge Distillation for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 42
  2. 2023The Rise of AI Language Pathologists: Exploring Two-level Prompt Learning for Few-shot Weakly-supervised Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 41
  3. 2022DGMIL: Distribution Guided Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 40
  4. 2021How I failed machine learning in medical imaging -- shortcomings and recommendationscited by 37
  5. 2021End-to-end Prostate Cancer Detection in bpMRI via 3D CNNs: Effects of Attention Mechanisms, Clinical Priori and Decoupled False Positive Reductioncited by 32
  6. 2022WSSS4LUAD: Grand Challenge on Weakly-supervised Tissue Semantic Segmentation for Lung Adenocarcinomacited by 32
  7. 2022Transforming medical imaging with Transformers? A comparative review of key properties, current progresses, and future perspectivescited by 32
  8. 2021Deep learning-based synthetic-CT generation in radiotherapy and PET: a reviewcited by 28
  9. 2023Exploring Transfer Learning in Medical Image Segmentation using Vision-Language Modelscited by 28
  10. 2021DSAL: Deeply Supervised Active Learning from Strong and Weak Labelers for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 27
  11. 2022LE-UDA: Label-efficient unsupervised domain adaptation for medical image segmentationcited by 27
  12. 2022MT-UDA: Towards Unsupervised Cross-modality Medical Image Segmentation with Limited Source Labelscited by 24
  13. 2022Understanding and Improving Transfer Learning of Deep Models via Neural Collapsecited by 24
  14. 2021Interpretability-Driven Sample Selection Using Self Supervised Learning For Disease Classification And Segmentationcited by 22
  15. 2021Uncertainty-Guided Mutual Consistency Learning for Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentationcited by 22
  16. 2021Hierarchical Consistency Regularized Mean Teacher for Semi-supervised 3D Left Atrium Segmentationcited by 21
  17. 2023Rethinking Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classification: A Good Instance Classifier is All You Needcited by 21
  18. 2024Semi-supervised Concept Bottleneck Modelscited by 21
  19. 2021Transfer Learning in Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging: a Systematic Reviewcited by 19
  20. 2021A novel multiple instance learning framework for COVID-19 severity assessment via data augmentation and self-supervised learningcited by 19
  21. 2022Test-Time Adaptation with Shape Moments for Image Segmentationcited by 19
  22. 2022Joint Self-Supervised Image-Volume Representation Learning with Intra-Inter Contrastive Clusteringcited by 16
  23. 2021Challenges for machine learning in clinical translation of big data imaging studiescited by 15
  24. 2021Self-supervised Mean Teacher for Semi-supervised Chest X-ray Classificationcited by 14
  25. 2023Label-Efficient Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis: Challenges and Future Directionscited by 14
  26. 2021Categorical Relation-Preserving Contrastive Knowledge Distillation for Medical Image Classificationcited by 13
  27. 2021Label Cleaning Multiple Instance Learning: Refining Coarse Annotations on Single Whole-Slide Imagescited by 13
  28. 2023MUSCLE: Multi-task Self-supervised Continual Learning to Pre-train Deep Models for X-ray Images of Multiple Body Partscited by 13
  29. 2023Anatomically-aware Uncertainty for Semi-supervised Image Segmentationcited by 13
  30. 2024Pathology-knowledge Enhanced Multi-instance Prompt Learning for Few-shot Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 13
  31. 2021Vessel-CAPTCHA: an efficient learning framework for vessel annotation and segmentationcited by 12
  32. 2021Uncertainty-Aware Deep Co-training for Semi-supervised Medical Image Segmentationcited by 12
  33. 2023Is attention all you need in medical image analysis? A reviewcited by 12
  34. 2023Segment Together: A Versatile Paradigm for Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentationcited by 12
  35. 2021Annotation-efficient cancer detection with report-guided lesion annotation for deep learning-based prostate cancer detection in bpMRIcited by 11
  36. 2025SegAnyPET: Universal Promptable Segmentation from Positron Emission Tomography Imagescited by 11
  37. 2021Dual-Task Mutual Learning for Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentationcited by 10
  38. 2023A Review of Predictive and Contrastive Self-supervised Learning for Medical Imagescited by 10

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