# MambaMIL: Enhancing Long Sequence Modeling with Sequence Reordering in Computational Pathology

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.06800 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06800/

## Key facts

- Cited by 88 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Mamba for medical image analysis, one of 10 directions in State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba).
- Builds on 12 of its 20 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Mar 2024.

## Placed in

- State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba) / [Mamba for medical image analysis](https://mlsanity.com/ssm/mamba-for-medical-image-analysis/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00396/) (2021)
- [Attention-based Deep Multiple Instance Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.04712/) (2018)
- [Vision Mamba: Efficient Visual Representation Learning with Bidirectional State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09417/) (2024)
- [Data Efficient and Weakly Supervised Computational Pathology on Whole Slide Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.09666/) (2020)
- [TransMIL: Transformer based Correlated Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.00908/) (2021)
- [Dual-stream Multiple Instance Learning Network for Whole Slide Image Classification with Self-supervised Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.08939/) (2020)
- [DTFD-MIL: Double-Tier Feature Distillation Multiple Instance Learning for Histopathology Whole Slide Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12081/) (2022)
- [BRACS: A Dataset for BReAst Carcinoma Subtyping in H&E Histology Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.04740/) (2021)
- [Structured State Space Models for Multiple Instance Learning in Digital Pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.15789/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 88)

- [Is Mamba Effective for Time Series Forecasting?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11144/) (2024)
- [State Space Model for New-Generation Network Alternative to Transformers: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09516/) (2024)
- [A Multimodal Knowledge-enhanced Whole-slide Pathology Foundation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15362/) (2024)
- [Vision Mamba: A Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.04404/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Visual Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15956/) (2024)
- [MambaVC: Learned Visual Compression with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15413/) (2024)
- [FOCUS: Knowledge-enhanced Adaptive Visual Compression for Few-shot Whole Slide Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14743/) (2024)
- [Vim4Path: Self-Supervised Vision Mamba for Histopathology Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13222/) (2024)
- [A Comprehensive Survey of Mamba Architectures for Medical Image Analysis: Classification, Segmentation, Restoration and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02362/) (2024)
- [HMIL: Hierarchical Multi-Instance Learning for Fine-Grained Whole Slide Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.07660/) (2024)
- [Distilled Prompt Learning for Incomplete Multimodal Survival Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01653/) (2025)
- [CoMamba: Real-time Cooperative Perception Unlocked with State Space Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.10699/) (2024)
- [Combining Graph Neural Network and Mamba to Capture Local and Global Tissue Spatial Relationships in Whole Slide Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04377/) (2024)
- [DPsurv: Dual-Prototype Evidential Fusion for Uncertainty-Aware and Interpretable Whole-Slide Image Survival Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.00053/) (2025)
- [VLM-CPL: Consensus Pseudo Labels from Vision-Language Models for Annotation-Free Pathological Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.15836/) (2024)
- [Fast and Accurate Gigapixel Pathological Image Classification with Hierarchical Distillation Multi-Instance Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.21130/) (2025)
- [Fusion of Multi-scale Heterogeneous Pathology Foundation Models for Whole Slide Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.27237/) (2025)
- [Prompt-Guided Foundation Model Tuning for Pathology Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12537/) (2024)
- [Mamba2MIL: State Space Duality Based Multiple Instance Learning for Computational Pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15032/) (2024)
- [Diagnostic Text-guided Representation Learning in Hierarchical Classification for Pathological Whole Slide Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10709/) (2024)
- [Towards a Comprehensive Benchmark for Pathological Lymph Node Metastasis in Breast Cancer Sections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10752/) (2024)
- [Discovering Pathology Rationale and Token Allocation for Efficient Multimodal Pathology Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15687/) (2025)
- [MoMa: Modulating Mamba for Adapting Image Foundation Models to Video Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23283/) (2025)
- [UD-Mamba: A pixel-level uncertainty-driven Mamba model for medical image segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.02024/) (2025)
- [PathVQ: Reforming Computational Pathology Foundation Model for Whole Slide Image Analysis via Vector Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06482/) (2025)
- [Prototype-Guided Cross-Modal Knowledge Enhancement for Adaptive Survival Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10726/) (2025)
- [PTCMIL: Multiple Instance Learning via Prompt Token Clustering for Whole Slide Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18848/) (2025)
- [GenAR: Next-Scale Autoregressive Generation for Spatial Gene Expression Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.04315/) (2025)
- [Classification of Gleason Grading in Prostate Cancer Histopathology Images Using Deep Learning Techniques: YOLO, Vision Transformers, and Vision Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17122/) (2024)
- [Slide-based Graph Collaborative Training for Histopathology Whole Slide Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10260/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Multiple Instance Learning (MIL) has emerged as a dominant paradigm to extract discriminative feature representations within Whole Slide Images (WSIs) in computational pathology. Despite driving notable progress, existing MIL approaches suffer from limitations in facilitating comprehensive and efficient interactions among instances, as well as challenges related to time-consuming computations and overfitting. In this paper, we incorporate the Selective Scan Space State Sequential Model (Mamba) in Multiple Instance Learning (MIL) for long sequence modeling with linear complexity, termed as MambaMIL. By inheriting the capability of vanilla Mamba, MambaMIL demonstrates the ability to comprehensively understand and perceive long sequences of instances. Furthermore, we propose the Sequence Reordering Mamba (SR-Mamba) aware of the order and distribution of instances, which exploits the inherent valuable information embedded within the long sequences. With the SR-Mamba as the core component, MambaMIL can effectively capture more discriminative features and mitigate the challenges associated with overfitting and high computational overhead. Extensive experiments on two public challenging tasks across nine diverse datasets demonstrate that our proposed framework performs favorably against state-of-the-art MIL methods. The code is released at https://github.com/isyangshu/MambaMIL.