# LE-UDA: Label-efficient unsupervised domain adaptation for medical image segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.02078 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.02078/

## Key facts

- Cited by 27 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 67 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Dec 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Domain-Adversarial Training of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.07818/) (2015)
- [V-Net: Fully Convolutional Neural Networks for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04797/) (2016)
- [3D U-Net: Learning Dense Volumetric Segmentation from Sparse Annotation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.06650/) (2016)
- [Adversarial Discriminative Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.05464/) (2017)
- [CyCADA: Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.03213/) (2017)
- [Temporal Ensembling for Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02242/) (2016)
- [ADVENT: Adversarial Entropy Minimization for Domain Adaptation in Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.12833/) (2018)
- [Learning to Adapt Structured Output Space for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.10349/) (2018)
- [Mean teachers are better role models: Weight-averaged consistency targets improve semi-supervised deep learning results](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.01780/) (2017)
- [Uncertainty-aware Self-ensembling Model for Semi-supervised 3D Left Atrium Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.07034/) (2019)
- [Deeply-Supervised Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.5185/) (2014)
- [Domain Adaptation for Medical Image Analysis: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09508/) (2021)
- [CHAOS Challenge -- Combined (CT-MR) Healthy Abdominal Organ Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06535/) (2020)
- [Unsupervised Pixel-Level Domain Adaptation with Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.05424/) (2016)
- [Embracing Imperfect Datasets: A Review of Deep Learning Solutions for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10454/) (2019)
- [A review of deep learning in medical imaging: Imaging traits, technology trends, case studies with progress highlights, and future promises](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.09104/) (2020)
- [Semi-supervised Medical Image Segmentation through Dual-task Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.04448/) (2020)
- [Not-so-supervised: a survey of semi-supervised, multi-instance, and transfer learning in medical image analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.06353/) (2018)
- [Transformation Consistent Self-ensembling Model for Semi-supervised Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.00348/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Bidirectional Cross-Modality Adaptation via Deeply Synergistic Image and Feature Alignment for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.02255/) (2020)
- [Synergistic Image and Feature Adaptation: Towards Cross-Modality Domain Adaptation for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.08211/) (2019)
- [Translating and Segmenting Multimodal Medical Volumes with Cycle- and Shape-Consistency Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.09655/) (2018)
- [DeepCut: Object Segmentation from Bounding Box Annotations using Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.07866/) (2016)
- [Self-Supervised Learning for Cardiac MR Image Segmentation by Anatomical Position Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02757/) (2019)
- [SynSeg-Net: Synthetic Segmentation Without Target Modality Ground Truth](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.06498/) (2018)
- [Transfer Learning for Domain Adaptation in MRI: Application in Brain Lesion Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.07841/) (2017)
- [Unsupervised Cross-Modality Domain Adaptation of ConvNets for Biomedical Image Segmentations with Adversarial Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.10916/) (2018)
- [From source to target and back: symmetric bi-directional adaptive GAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08824/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [Deep learning for unsupervised domain adaptation in medical imaging: Recent advancements and future perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.01265/) (2023)
- [Constructing and Exploring Intermediate Domains in Mixed Domain Semi-supervised Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.08951/) (2024)
- [SemiGNN-PPI: Self-Ensembling Multi-Graph Neural Network for Efficient and Generalizable Protein-Protein Interaction Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08316/) (2023)
- [Steady Progress Beats Stagnation: Mutual Aid of Foundation and Conventional Models in Mixed Domain Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16997/) (2025)
- [Improving Differentiable Architecture Search via Self-Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05629/) (2023)
- [Cross-modal tumor segmentation using generative blending augmentation and self training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01705/) (2023)
- [Semi-Supervised Crowd Counting with Contextual Modeling: Facilitating Holistic Understanding of Crowd Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.10352/) (2023)
- [Navigating Distribution Shifts in Medical Image Analysis: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.05824/) (2024)
- [UniTrans: A Unified Vertical Federated Knowledge Transfer Framework for Enhancing Cross-Hospital Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.11388/) (2025)
- [MS-MT: Multi-Scale Mean Teacher with Contrastive Unpaired Translation for Cross-Modality Vestibular Schwannoma and Cochlea Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15826/) (2023)
- [Attentive Continuous Generative Self-training for Unsupervised Domain Adaptive Medical Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14589/) (2023)
- [ODES: Domain Adaptation with Expert Guidance for Online Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05407/) (2023)
- [Unleashing the Power of Intermediate Domains for Mixed Domain Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.24567/) (2025)
- [A Comprehensive Study on Medical Image Segmentation using Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.04121/) (2025)
- [crossMoDA Challenge: Evolution of Cross-Modality Domain Adaptation Techniques for Vestibular Schwannoma and Cochlea Segmentation from 2021 to 2023](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12006/) (2025)
- [DeepHealthNet: Adolescent Obesity Prediction System Based on a Deep Learning Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14657/) (2023)
- [Rethinking Barely-Supervised Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation from an Unsupervised Domain Adaptation Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.09777/) (2024)
- [Vox-UDA: Voxel-wise Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Cryo-Electron Subtomogram Segmentation with Denoised Pseudo Labeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.18610/) (2024)
- [Integrating HCI Datasets in Project-Based Machine Learning Courses: A College-Level Review and Case Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03472/) (2024)
- [DiM: f-Divergence Minimization Guided Sharpness-Aware Optimization for Semi-supervised Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.12350/) (2024)
- [TCSA-UDA: Text-Driven Cross-Semantic Alignment for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation in Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.05782/) (2025)
- [Meta-learners for few-shot weakly-supervised optic disc and cup segmentation on fundus images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15061/) (2025)
- [FALCON: Few-Shot Adversarial Learning for Cross-Domain Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.01687/) (2026)
- [DDS-UDA: Dual-Domain Synergy for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation in Joint Segmentation of Optic Disc and Optic Cup](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.13345/) (2026)
- [SHAPE: Structure-aware Hierarchical Unsupervised Domain Adaptation with Plausibility Evaluation for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21904/) (2026)
- [BCMDA: Bidirectional Correlation Maps Domain Adaptation for Mixed Domain Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.24691/) (2026)
- [Dual Co-Train: Cross-Dataset Ultrasound Tongue Segmentation Under Extreme Data Scarcity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.17983/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While deep learning methods hitherto have achieved considerable success in medical image segmentation, they are still hampered by two limitations: (i) reliance on large-scale well-labeled datasets, which are difficult to curate due to the expert-driven and time-consuming nature of pixel-level annotations in clinical practices, and (ii) failure to generalize from one domain to another, especially when the target domain is a different modality with severe domain shifts. Recent unsupervised domain adaptation~(UDA) techniques leverage abundant labeled source data together with unlabeled target data to reduce the domain gap, but these methods degrade significantly with limited source annotations. In this study, we address this underexplored UDA problem, investigating a challenging but valuable realistic scenario, where the source domain not only exhibits domain shift~w.r.t. the target domain but also suffers from label scarcity. In this regard, we propose a novel and generic framework called ``Label-Efficient Unsupervised Domain Adaptation"~(LE-UDA). In LE-UDA, we construct self-ensembling consistency for knowledge transfer between both domains, as well as a self-ensembling adversarial learning module to achieve better feature alignment for UDA. To assess the effectiveness of our method, we conduct extensive experiments on two different tasks for cross-modality segmentation between MRI and CT images. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed LE-UDA can efficiently leverage limited source labels to improve cross-domain segmentation performance, outperforming state-of-the-art UDA approaches in the literature. Code is available at: https://github.com/jacobzhaoziyuan/LE-UDA.