# Novel adaptation of video segmentation to 3D MRI: efficient zero-shot knee segmentation with SAM2

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.04762 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.04762/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 9 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Aug 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00714/) (2024)
- [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)
- [Hiera: A Hierarchical Vision Transformer without the Bells-and-Whistles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00989/) (2023)
- [SAM-Med2D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16184/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Unleashing the Potential of SAM2 for Biomedical Images and Videos: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.12889/) (2024)
- [SAM2 for Image and Video Segmentation: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12781/) (2025)
- [CamSAM2: Segment Anything Accurately in Camouflaged Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19730/) (2025)
- [EMA-SAM: Exponential Moving-average for SAM-based PTMC Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.18213/) (2025)
- [Towards Better Ultrasound Video Segmentation Foundation Model: An Empirical study on SAM2 Finetuning from Data Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.05731/) (2025)
- [Medical Image Spatial Grounding with Semantic Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14579/) (2026)
- [SAMRI-3D: Adapting SAM2 for 3D MRI Segmentation with Global Volume Tokens](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.18014/) (2026)
- [KneePreM: Towards 3D Knee MRI Foundation Models via Large-Scale Unlabeled Pretraining and Label-Efficient Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.31461/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Intelligent medical image segmentation methods are rapidly evolving and being increasingly applied, yet they face the challenge of domain transfer, where algorithm performance degrades due to different data distributions between source and target domains. To address this, we introduce a method for zero-shot, single-prompt segmentation of 3D knee MRI by adapting Segment Anything Model 2 (SAM2), a general-purpose segmentation model designed to accept prompts and retain memory across frames of a video. By treating slices from 3D medical volumes as individual video frames, we leverage SAM2's advanced capabilities to generate motion- and spatially-aware predictions. We demonstrate that SAM2 can efficiently perform segmentation tasks in a zero-shot manner with no additional training or fine-tuning, accurately delineating structures in knee MRI scans using only a single prompt. Our experiments on the Osteoarthritis Initiative Zuse Institute Berlin (OAI-ZIB) dataset reveal that SAM2 achieves high accuracy on 3D knee bone segmentation, with a testing Dice similarity coefficient of 0.9643 on tibia. We also present results generated using different SAM2 model sizes, different prompt schemes, as well as comparative results from the SAM1 model deployed on the same dataset. This breakthrough has the potential to revolutionize medical image analysis by providing a scalable, cost-effective solution for automated segmentation, paving the way for broader clinical applications and streamlined workflows.