mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

DTFD-MIL: Double-Tier Feature Distillation Multiple Instance Learning for Histopathology Whole Slide Image Classification

arXiv 2203.12081 ↗First posted 22 Mar 2022cs.CV cs.AI cs.LGcited by 254

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Abstract (arXiv)

Multiple instance learning (MIL) has been increasingly used in the classification of histopathology whole slide images (WSIs). However, MIL approaches for this specific classification problem still face unique challenges, particularly those related to small sample cohorts. In these, there are limited number of WSI slides (bags), while the resolution of a single WSI is huge, which leads to a large number of patches (instances) cropped from this slide. To address this issue, we propose to virtually enlarge the number of bags by introducing the concept of pseudo-bags, on which a double-tier MIL framework is built to effectively use the intrinsic features. Besides, we also contribute to deriving the instance probability under the framework of attention-based MIL, and utilize the derivation to help construct and analyze the proposed framework. The proposed method outperforms other latest methods on the CAMELYON-16 by substantially large margins, and is also better in performance on the TCGA lung cancer dataset. The proposed framework is ready to be extended for wider MIL applications. The code is available at: https://github.com/hrzhang1123/DTFD-MIL

Key facts. Cited by 254 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 31 of its 56 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 22 Mar 2022.

Builds on

31 of 56 references.

References · 31

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  6. 2020Data Efficient and Weakly Supervised Computational Pathology on Whole Slide Imagescited by 738
  7. 2021TransMIL: Transformer based Correlated Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 549
  8. 2020Dual-stream Multiple Instance Learning Network for Whole Slide Image Classification with Self-supervised Contrastive Learningcited by 473
  9. 2016Seed, Expand and Constrain: Three Principles for Weakly-Supervised Image Segmentationcited by 198
  10. 2015Patch-based Convolutional Neural Network for Whole Slide Tissue Image Classificationcited by 159
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19 more
  1. 2018Weakly-Supervised Semantic Segmentation by Iteratively Mining Common Object Featurescited by 81
  2. 2019CAMEL: A Weakly Supervised Learning Framework for Histopathology Image Segmentationcited by 73
  3. 2018Neural Image Compression for Gigapixel Histopathology Image Analysiscited by 65
  4. 2021Cluster-to-Conquer: A Framework for End-to-End Multi-Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 65
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  6. 2019Min-Entropy Latent Model for Weakly Supervised Object Detectioncited by 45
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  15. 2020Predicting molecular phenotypes from histopathology images: a transcriptome-wide expression-morphology analysis in breast cancercited by 21
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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2022: 6; 2023: 54; 2024: 70; 2025: 81; 2026: 43.

254 papers.

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  1. 2023Visual Language Pretrained Multiple Instance Zero-Shot Transfer for Histopathology Imagescited by 132
  2. 2023Interventional Bag Multi-Instance Learning On Whole-Slide Pathological Imagescited by 91
  3. 2024MambaMIL: Enhancing Long Sequence Modeling with Sequence Reordering in Computational Pathologycited by 87
  4. 2023Multimodal Optimal Transport-based Co-Attention Transformer with Global Structure Consistency for Survival Predictioncited by 86
  5. 2024Morphological Prototyping for Unsupervised Slide Representation Learning in Computational Pathologycited by 70
  6. 2024Feature Re-Embedding: Towards Foundation Model-Level Performance in Computational Pathologycited by 66
  7. 2024Dynamic Graph Representation with Knowledge-aware Attention for Histopathology Whole Slide Image Analysiscited by 66
  8. 2023Attention-Challenging Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 61
  9. 2023Multiple Instance Learning Framework with Masked Hard Instance Mining for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 58
  10. 2022Multiple Instance Learning for Digital Pathology: A Review on the State-of-the-Art, Limitations & Future Potentialcited by 54
  11. 2023Task-specific Fine-tuning via Variational Information Bottleneck for Weakly-supervised Pathology Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 54
  12. 2024Transcriptomics-guided Slide Representation Learning in Computational Pathologycited by 50
38 more
  1. 2024HistGen: Histopathology Report Generation via Local-Global Feature Encoding and Cross-modal Context Interactioncited by 43
  2. 2023The Rise of AI Language Pathologists: Exploring Two-level Prompt Learning for Few-shot Weakly-supervised Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 41
  3. 20242DMamba: Efficient State Space Model for Image Representation with Applications on Giga-Pixel Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 35
  4. 2024WSI-VQA: Interpreting Whole Slide Images by Generative Visual Question Answeringcited by 34
  5. 2025Distilling foundation models for robust and efficient models in digital pathologycited by 33
  6. 2023WsiCaption: Multiple Instance Generation of Pathology Reports for Gigapixel Whole-Slide Imagescited by 31
  7. 2025ViLa-MIL: Dual-scale Vision-Language Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 28
  8. 2025Do Multiple Instance Learning Models Transfer?cited by 28
  9. 2023Diagnose Like a Pathologist: Transformer-Enabled Hierarchical Attention-Guided Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 27
  10. 2024Generalizable Whole Slide Image Classification with Fine-Grained Visual-Semantic Interactioncited by 27
  11. 2024MapDistill: Boosting Efficient Camera-based HD Map Construction via Camera-LiDAR Fusion Model Distillationcited by 26
  12. 2023ConSlide: Asynchronous Hierarchical Interaction Transformer with Breakup-Reorganize Rehearsal for Continual Whole Slide Image Analysiscited by 25
  13. 2024DGR-MIL: Exploring Diverse Global Representation in Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 25
  14. 2024MoME: Mixture of Multimodal Experts for Cancer Survival Predictioncited by 23
  15. 2022Multiple Instance Learning via Iterative Self-Paced Supervised Contrastive Learningcited by 22
  16. 2023Rethinking Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classification: A Good Instance Classifier is All You Needcited by 21
  17. 2024CPLIP: Zero-Shot Learning for Histopathology with Comprehensive Vision-Language Alignmentcited by 20
  18. 2024FOCUS: Knowledge-enhanced Adaptive Visual Compression for Few-shot Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 20
  19. 2024Vim4Path: Self-Supervised Vision Mamba for Histopathology Imagescited by 19
  20. 2023AMIGO: Sparse Multi-Modal Graph Transformer with Shared-Context Processing for Representation Learning of Giga-pixel Imagescited by 18
  21. 2023Pseudo-Bag Mixup Augmentation for Multiple Instance Learning-Based Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 18
  22. 2023Rotation-Agnostic Image Representation Learning for Digital Pathologycited by 15
  23. 2024xMIL: Insightful Explanations for Multiple Instance Learning in Histopathologycited by 15
  24. 2023Label-Efficient Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis: Challenges and Future Directionscited by 14
  25. 2023Weakly supervised segmentation with point annotations for histopathology images via contrast-based variational modelcited by 13
  26. 2023CAMIL: Context-Aware Multiple Instance Learning for Cancer Detection and Subtyping in Whole Slide Imagescited by 13
  27. 2024Cohort-Individual Cooperative Learning for Multimodal Cancer Survival Analysiscited by 13
  28. 2024Pathology-knowledge Enhanced Multi-instance Prompt Learning for Few-shot Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 13
  29. 2023Shapley Values-enabled Progressive Pseudo Bag Augmentation for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 12
  30. 2024MamMIL: Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Images with State Space Modelscited by 12
  31. 2024Dynamic Policy-Driven Adaptive Multi-Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 12
  32. 2024TimeMIL: Advancing Multivariate Time Series Classification via a Time-aware Multiple Instance Learningcited by 12
  33. 2024Rethinking Transformer for Long Contextual Histopathology Whole Slide Image Analysiscited by 12
  34. 2024HMIL: Hierarchical Multi-Instance Learning for Fine-Grained Whole Slide Image Classificationcited by 12
  35. 2023Cross-scale Multi-instance Learning for Pathological Image Diagnosiscited by 11
  36. 2024Free Lunch in Pathology Foundation Model: Task-specific Model Adaptation with Concept-Guided Feature Enhancementcited by 11
  37. 2022DSCA: A Dual-Stream Network with Cross-Attention on Whole-Slide Image Pyramids for Cancer Prognosiscited by 10
  38. 2023Deep Learning in Breast Cancer Imaging: A Decade of Progress and Future Directionscited by 10

50 most cited of 254 All 254 (JSON)