DiffOSeg: Omni Medical Image Segmentation via Multi-Expert Collaboration Diffusion Model
On the map: Diffusion models → Medical imaging and segmentation
Abstract (arXiv)
Annotation variability remains a substantial challenge in medical image segmentation, stemming from ambiguous imaging boundaries and diverse clinical expertise. Traditional deep learning methods producing single deterministic segmentation predictions often fail to capture these annotator biases. Although recent studies have explored multi-rater segmentation, existing methods typically focus on a single perspective -- either generating a probabilistic ``gold standard'' consensus or preserving expert-specific preferences -- thus struggling to provide a more omni view. In this study, we propose DiffOSeg, a two-stage diffusion-based framework, which aims to simultaneously achieve both consensus-driven (combining all experts' opinions) and preference-driven (reflecting experts' individual assessments) segmentation. Stage I establishes population consensus through a probabilistic consensus strategy, while Stage II captures expert-specific preference via adaptive prompts. Demonstrated on two public datasets (LIDC-IDRI and NPC-170), our model outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods across all evaluated metrics. Source code is available at https://github.com/string-ellipses/DiffOSeg .
Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Medical imaging and segmentation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 19 of its 30 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 17 Jul 2025.
Builds on
19 of 30 references.
Closest ancestors · 2
Same direction, newest first
- 2023Stochastic Segmentation with Conditional Categorical Diffusion Models15 Mar
- 2021Argmax Flows and Multinomial Diffusion: Learning Categorical Distributions10 Feb
Other references · 17
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
- 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,713
- 2021Prefix-Tuning: Optimizing Continuous Prompts for Generationcited by 3,915
- 2022Visual Prompt Tuningcited by 1,681
- 2022TabDDPM: Modelling Tabular Data with Diffusion Modelscited by 377
- 2022DiffusionDet: Diffusion Model for Object Detectioncited by 354
- 2018A Probabilistic U-Net for Segmentation of Ambiguous Imagescited by 283
- 2019PHiSeg: Capturing Uncertainty in Medical Image Segmentationcited by 128
- 2019Learning From Noisy Labels By Regularized Estimation Of Annotator Confusioncited by 127
- 2020DoDNet: Learning to segment multi-organ and tumors from multiple partially labeled datasetscited by 94
- 2020Disentangling Human Error from the Ground Truth in Segmentation of Medical Imagescited by 58
- 2023Probabilistic Modeling of Inter- and Intra-observer Variability in Medical Image Segmentationcited by 17
5 more
- 2023Fill the K-Space and Refine the Image: Prompting for Dynamic and Multi-Contrast MRI Reconstructioncited by 17
- 2022Modeling Multimodal Aleatoric Uncertainty in Segmentation with Mixture of Stochastic Expertscited by 13
- 2021Modeling Annotator Preference and Stochastic Annotation Error for Medical Image Segmentationcited by 12
- 2024Diversified and Personalized Multi-rater Medical Image Segmentationcited by 9
- 2023Transformer-based Annotation Bias-aware Medical Image Segmentationcited by 8
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.
2 papers.
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2023Annotator Consensus Prediction for Medical Image Segmentation with Diffusion Models
- 2023Ambiguous Medical Image Segmentation using Diffusion Models
- 2023DiffBoost: Enhancing Medical Image Segmentation via Text-Guided Diffusion Model
- 2026Med-SegLens: Latent-Level Model Diffing for Interpretable Medical Image Segmentation
- 2025Diffusion Based Ambiguous Image Segmentation
- 2023Diff-UNet: A Diffusion Embedded Network for Volumetric Segmentation
- 2024DiffSeg: A Segmentation Model for Skin Lesions Based on Diffusion Difference
- 2025Generalist Models in Medical Image Segmentation: A Survey and Performance Comparison with Task-Specific Approaches