# Empirical Analysis of a Segmentation Foundation Model in Prostate Imaging

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.03266 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03266/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Jul 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04356/) (2022)
- [On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07258/) (2021)
- [wav2vec 2.0: A Framework for Self-Supervised Learning of Speech Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11477/) (2020)
- [RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06817/) (2022)
- [Segment Everything Everywhere All at Once](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06718/) (2023)
- [Medical SAM Adapter: Adapting Segment Anything Model for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.12620/) (2023)
- [Segment Anything Model for Medical Image Analysis: an Experimental Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.10517/) (2023)
- [Segment Anything Model (SAM) for Digital Pathology: Assess Zero-shot Segmentation on Whole Slide Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04155/) (2023)
- [Open-World Object Manipulation using Pre-trained Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.00905/) (2023)
- [Data augmentation using learned transformations for one-shot medical image segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.09383/) (2019)
- [UniverSeg: Universal Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06131/) (2023)
- [SAM on Medical Images: A Comprehensive Study on Three Prompt Modes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.00035/) (2023)
- [SAM.MD: Zero-shot medical image segmentation capabilities of the Segment Anything Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05396/) (2023)
- [Can SAM Segment Polyps?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07583/) (2023)
- [Generalist Vision Foundation Models for Medical Imaging: A Case Study of Segment Anything Model on Zero-Shot Medical Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.12637/) (2023)
- [A Learning Strategy for Contrast-agnostic MRI Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01995/) (2020)
- [SkinSAM: Empowering Skin Cancer Segmentation with Segment Anything Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13973/) (2023)
- [DeSAM: Decoupled Segment Anything Model for Generalizable Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00499/) (2023)
- [Enhancing MR Image Segmentation with Realistic Adversarial Data Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03429/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [A Comprehensive Survey of Foundation Models in Medicine](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10729/) (2024)
- [Triad: Vision Foundation Model for 3D Magnetic Resonance Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14064/) (2025)
- [Impact of Clinical Image Quality on Efficient Foundation Model Finetuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.11864/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Most state-of-the-art techniques for medical image segmentation rely on deep-learning models. These models, however, are often trained on narrowly-defined tasks in a supervised fashion, which requires expensive labeled datasets. Recent advances in several machine learning domains, such as natural language generation have demonstrated the feasibility and utility of building foundation models that can be customized for various downstream tasks with little to no labeled data. This likely represents a paradigm shift for medical imaging, where we expect that foundation models may shape the future of the field. In this paper, we consider a recently developed foundation model for medical image segmentation, UniverSeg. We conduct an empirical evaluation study in the context of prostate imaging and compare it against the conventional approach of training a task-specific segmentation model. Our results and discussion highlight several important factors that will likely be important in the development and adoption of foundation models for medical image segmentation.