# Joint localization and classification of breast tumors on ultrasound images using a novel auxiliary attention-based framework

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.05762 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.05762/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 16 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Oct 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [CBAM: Convolutional Block Attention Module](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.06521/) (2018)
- [Learning Deep Features for Discriminative Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.04150/) (2015)
- [End-to-End Multi-Task Learning with Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.10704/) (2018)
- [Multi-Task Learning with Deep Neural Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09796/) (2020)
- [Counterfactual Visual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07451/) (2019)
- [A Survey on Deep Semi-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00550/) (2021)
- [Concept Whitening for Interpretable Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.01650/) (2020)
- [Semi-Supervised Semantic Segmentation with High- and Low-level Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.05724/) (2019)
- [Joint Weakly and Semi-Supervised Deep Learning for Localization and Classification of Masses in Breast Ultrasound Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.03778/) (2017)
- [Gradient Adversarial Training of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.08028/) (2018)
- [Attention Enriched Deep Learning Model for Breast Tumor Segmentation in Ultrasound Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.08978/) (2019)
- [Explainable AI and susceptibility to adversarial attacks: a case study in classification of breast ultrasound images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.04345/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Automatic breast lesion detection and classification is an important task in computer-aided diagnosis, in which breast ultrasound (BUS) imaging is a common and frequently used screening tool. Recently, a number of deep learning-based methods have been proposed for joint localization and classification of breast lesions using BUS images. In these methods, features extracted by a shared network trunk are appended by two independent network branches to achieve classification and localization. Improper information sharing might cause conflicts in feature optimization in the two branches and leads to performance degradation. Also, these methods generally require large amounts of pixel-level annotated data for model training. To overcome these limitations, we proposed a novel joint localization and classification model based on the attention mechanism and disentangled semi-supervised learning strategy. The model used in this study is composed of a classification network and an auxiliary lesion-aware network. By use of the attention mechanism, the auxiliary lesion-aware network can optimize multi-scale intermediate feature maps and extract rich semantic information to improve classification and localization performance. The disentangled semi-supervised learning strategy only requires incomplete training datasets for model training. The proposed modularized framework allows flexible network replacement to be generalized for various applications. Experimental results on two different breast ultrasound image datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The impacts of various network factors on model performance are also investigated to gain deep insights into the designed framework.