# Integrating features from lymph node stations for metastatic lymph node detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.03202 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.03202/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Jan 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
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- [Graph Neural Networks: A Review of Methods and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08434/) (2018)
- [Deep High-Resolution Representation Learning for Human Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.09212/) (2019)
- [LightGCN: Simplifying and Powering Graph Convolution Network for Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.02126/) (2020)
- [CenterNet: Keypoint Triplets for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.08189/) (2019)
- [Object Detection with Deep Learning: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.05511/) (2018)
- [nnU-Net: Self-adapting Framework for U-Net-Based Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.10486/) (2018)
- [nnDetection: A Self-configuring Method for Medical Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.00817/) (2021)
- [MULAN: Multitask Universal Lesion Analysis Network for Joint Lesion Detection, Tagging, and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.04373/) (2019)
- [Improving RetinaNet for CT Lesion Detection with Dense Masks from Weak RECIST Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.02283/) (2019)
- [Accurate Pulmonary Nodule Detection in Computed Tomography Images Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.04303/) (2017)
- [3D Context Enhanced Region-based Convolutional Neural Network for End-to-End Lesion Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.09648/) (2018)
- [Multi-Scale Coarse-to-Fine Segmentation for Screening Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.02941/) (2018)
- [Improving Computer-aided Detection using Convolutional Neural Networks and Random View Aggregation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.03046/) (2015)
- [MVP-Net: Multi-view FPN with Position-aware Attention for Deep Universal Lesion Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.04247/) (2019)
- [Lymph Node Gross Tumor Volume Detection and Segmentation via Distance-based Gating using 3D CT/PET Imaging in Radiotherapy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.11870/) (2020)
- [Lymph Node Gross Tumor Volume Detection in Oncology Imaging via Relationship Learning Using Graph Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.13013/) (2020)
- [SCPM-Net: An Anchor-free 3D Lung Nodule Detection Network using Sphere Representation and Center Points Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.05215/) (2021)
- [DeepStationing: Thoracic Lymph Node Station Parsing in CT Scans using Anatomical Context Encoding and Key Organ Auto-Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.09271/) (2021)
- [Predicting Patient Readmission Risk from Medical Text via Knowledge Graph Enhanced Multiview Graph Convolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.02510/) (2021)
- [Detecting Scatteredly-Distributed, Small, andCritically Important Objects in 3D OncologyImaging via Decision Stratification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.13705/) (2020)
- [Segmentation for Classification of Screening Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02021/) (2020)
- [Lymph Node Graph Neural Networks for Cancer Metastasis Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01711/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Metastasis on lymph nodes (LNs), the most common way of spread for primary tumor cells, is a sign of increased mortality. However, metastatic LNs are time-consuming and challenging to detect even for professional radiologists due to their small sizes, high sparsity, and ambiguity in appearance. It is desired to leverage recent development in deep learning to automatically detect metastatic LNs. Besides a two-stage detection network, we here introduce an additional branch to leverage information about LN stations, an important reference for radiologists during metastatic LN diagnosis, as supplementary information for metastatic LN detection. The branch targets to solve a closely related task on the LN station level, i.e., classifying whether an LN station contains metastatic LN or not, so as to learn representations for LN stations. Considering that a metastatic LN station is expected to significantly affect the nearby ones, a GCN-based structure is adopted by the branch to model the relationship among different LN stations. At the classification stage of metastatic LN detection, the above learned LN station features, as well as the features reflecting the distance between the LN candidate and the LN stations, are integrated with the LN features. We validate our method on a dataset containing 114 intravenous contrast-enhanced Computed Tomography (CT) images of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients and show that it outperforms several state-of-the-art methods on the mFROC, maxF1, and AUC scores,respectively.