# Echocardiography Segmentation Using Neural ODE-based Diffeomorphic Registration Field

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.09687 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.09687/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Jun 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Neural Ordinary Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07366/) (2018)
- [Encoder-Decoder with Atrous Separable Convolution for Semantic Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.02611/) (2018)
- [Semantic Image Synthesis with Spatially-Adaptive Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07291/) (2019)
- [VoxelMorph: A Learning Framework for Deformable Medical Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.05231/) (2018)
- [ENet: A Deep Neural Network Architecture for Real-Time Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.02147/) (2016)
- [Deep Learning for Segmentation using an Open Large-Scale Dataset in 2D Echocardiography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06948/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Learning for Fast Probabilistic Diffeomorphic Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04605/) (2018)
- [Echocardiography Segmentation with Enforced Temporal Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02102/) (2021)
- [NODEO: A Neural Ordinary Differential Equation Based Optimization Framework for Deformable Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03443/) (2021)
- [Multi-scale Neural ODEs for 3D Medical Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08493/) (2021)
- [Test-Time Training for Deformable Multi-Scale Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.13578/) (2021)
- [Light-weight spatio-temporal graphs for segmentation and ejection fraction prediction in cardiac ultrasound](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02549/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Continuous Predictive Modeling of Clinical Notes and ICD Codes in Patient Health Records](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11622/) (2024)
- [Neural Ordinary Differential Equation based Sequential Image Registration for Dynamic Characterization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02106/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have recently proven their excellent ability to segment 2D cardiac ultrasound images. However, the majority of attempts to perform full-sequence segmentation of cardiac ultrasound videos either rely on models trained only on keyframe images or fail to maintain the topology over time. To address these issues, in this work, we consider segmentation of ultrasound video as a registration estimation problem and present a novel method for diffeomorphic image registration using neural ordinary differential equations (Neural ODE). In particular, we consider the registration field vector field between frames as a continuous trajectory ODE. The estimated registration field is then applied to the segmentation mask of the first frame to obtain a segment for the whole cardiac cycle. The proposed method, Echo-ODE, introduces several key improvements compared to the previous state-of-the-art. Firstly, by solving a continuous ODE, the proposed method achieves smoother segmentation, preserving the topology of segmentation maps over the whole sequence (Hausdorff distance: 3.7-4.4). Secondly, it maintains temporal consistency between frames without explicitly optimizing for temporal consistency attributes, achieving temporal consistency in 91% of the videos in the dataset. Lastly, the proposed method is able to maintain the clinical accuracy of the segmentation maps (MAE of the LVEF: 2.7-3.1). The results show that our method surpasses the previous state-of-the-art in multiple aspects, demonstrating the importance of spatial-temporal data processing for the implementation of Neural ODEs in medical imaging applications. These findings open up new research directions for solving echocardiography segmentation tasks.