# GREN: Graph-Regularized Embedding Network for Weakly-Supervised Disease Localization in X-ray Images

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.06442 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.06442/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 27 of its 54 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jul 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Learning Deep Features for Discriminative Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.04150/) (2015)
- [CheXpert: A Large Chest Radiograph Dataset with Uncertainty Labels and Expert Comparison](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.07031/) (2019)
- [CheXNet: Radiologist-Level Pneumonia Detection on Chest X-Rays with Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.05225/) (2017)
- [On the Automatic Generation of Medical Imaging Reports](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.08195/) (2017)
- [Hybrid Retrieval-Generation Reinforced Agent for Medical Image Report Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.08298/) (2018)
- [TieNet: Text-Image Embedding Network for Common Thorax Disease Classification and Reporting in Chest X-rays](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.04334/) (2018)
- [Thoracic Disease Identification and Localization with Limited Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.06373/) (2017)
- [Post-DAE: Anatomically Plausible Segmentation via Post-Processing with Denoising Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.13791/) (2020)
- [Deep Supervised Discrete Hashing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.10999/) (2017)
- [Diagnose like a Radiologist: Attention Guided Convolutional Neural Network for Thorax Disease Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.09927/) (2018)
- [A Structure-Aware Relation Network for Thoracic Diseases Detection and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10326/) (2021)
- [Attention-Guided Curriculum Learning for Weakly Supervised Classification and Localization of Thoracic Diseases on Chest Radiographs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.07532/) (2018)
- [Semantic-Aware Generative Adversarial Nets for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation in Chest X-ray Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.00600/) (2018)
- [Weakly Supervised Deep Learning for Thoracic Disease Classification and Localization on Chest X-rays](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.06067/) (2018)
- [Attention U-Net Based Adversarial Architectures for Chest X-ray Lung Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10304/) (2020)
- [Graph-RISE: Graph-Regularized Image Semantic Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.10814/) (2019)
- [Region Proposals for Saliency Map Refinement for Weakly-supervised Disease Localisation and Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.10550/) (2020)
- [Weakly-Supervised Segmentation for Disease Localization in Chest X-Ray Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00748/) (2020)
- [GraphXNET- Chest X-Ray Classification Under Extreme Minimal Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10085/) (2019)
- [Deep multiscale convolutional feature learning for weakly supervised localization of chest pathologies in X-ray images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.08280/) (2018)
- [Iterative Attention Mining for Weakly Supervised Thoracic Disease Pattern Localization in Chest X-Rays](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.00958/) (2018)
- [Image to Images Translation for Multi-Task Organ Segmentation and Bone Suppression in Chest X-Ray Radiography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.10089/) (2019)
- [Weakly supervised one-stage vision and language disease detection using large scale pneumonia and pneumothorax studies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.15778/) (2020)
- [Contralaterally Enhanced Networks for Thoracic Disease Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.04483/) (2020)
- [Cross Chest Graph for Disease Diagnosis with Structural Relational Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.08992/) (2021)
- [DeepEM: Deep 3D ConvNets With EM For Weakly Supervised Pulmonary Nodule Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.05373/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Self-eXplainable AI for Medical Image Analysis: A Survey and New Outlooks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02331/) (2024)
- [Label-Efficient Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis: Challenges and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12484/) (2023)
- [Cross- and Intra-image Prototypical Learning for Multi-label Disease Diagnosis and Interpretation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04607/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Locating diseases in chest X-ray images with few careful annotations saves large human effort. Recent works approached this task with innovative weakly-supervised algorithms such as multi-instance learning (MIL) and class activation maps (CAM), however, these methods often yield inaccurate or incomplete regions. One of the reasons is the neglection of the pathological implications hidden in the relationship across anatomical regions within each image and the relationship across images. In this paper, we argue that the cross-region and cross-image relationship, as contextual and compensating information, is vital to obtain more consistent and integral regions. To model the relationship, we propose the Graph Regularized Embedding Network (GREN), which leverages the intra-image and inter-image information to locate diseases on chest X-ray images. GREN uses a pre-trained U-Net to segment the lung lobes, and then models the intra-image relationship between the lung lobes using an intra-image graph to compare different regions. Meanwhile, the relationship between in-batch images is modeled by an inter-image graph to compare multiple images. This process mimics the training and decision-making process of a radiologist: comparing multiple regions and images for diagnosis. In order for the deep embedding layers of the neural network to retain structural information (important in the localization task), we use the Hash coding and Hamming distance to compute the graphs, which are used as regularizers to facilitate training. By means of this, our approach achieves the state-of-the-art result on NIH chest X-ray dataset for weakly-supervised disease localization. Our codes are accessible online (https://github.com/qibaolian/GREN).