# MSDM: Generating Task-Specific Pathology Images with a Multimodal Conditioned Diffusion Model for Cell and Nuclei Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09121 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.09121/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Medical imaging and segmentation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 24 of its 33 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Medical imaging and segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/medical-imaging-and-segmentation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10741/) (2021)
- [UMAP: Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection for Dimension Reduction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.03426/) (2018)
- [Semantic Image Synthesis with Spatially-Adaptive Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07291/) (2019)
- [Blended Diffusion for Text-driven Editing of Natural Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14818/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Models for Medical Image Analysis: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07804/) (2022)
- [Semantic Image Synthesis via Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.00050/) (2022)
- [A Morphology Focused Diffusion Probabilistic Model for Synthesis of Histopathology Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.13167/) (2022)
- [PathLDM: Text conditioned Latent Diffusion Model for Histopathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.00748/) (2023)
- [Diffusion-based Data Augmentation for Nuclei Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.14197/) (2023)
- [DiffInfinite: Large Mask-Image Synthesis via Parallel Random Patch Diffusion in Histopathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13384/) (2023)
- [DiffMix: Diffusion Model-based Data Synthesis for Nuclei Segmentation and Classification in Imbalanced Pathology Image Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14132/) (2023)
- [NASDM: Nuclei-Aware Semantic Histopathology Image Generation Using Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11477/) (2023)
- [TopoCellGen: Generating Histopathology Cell Topology with a Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06011/) (2024)
- [StainDiffuser: MultiTask Dual Diffusion Model for Virtual Staining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11340/) (2024)
- [Diffusion-based generation of Histopathological Whole Slide Images at a Gigapixel scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08199/) (2023)
- [Controllable and Efficient Multi-Class Pathology Nuclei Data Augmentation using Text-Conditioned Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.14426/) (2024)
- [ReStainGAN: Leveraging IHC to IF Stain Domain Translation for in-silico Data Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06545/) (2024)
- [Auxiliary CycleGAN-guidance for Task-Aware Domain Translation from Duplex to Monoplex IHC Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07389/) (2024)
- [Improving text-conditioned latent diffusion for cancer pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06487/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Scarcity of annotated data, particularly for rare or atypical morphologies, present significant challenges for cell and nuclei segmentation in computational pathology. While manual annotation is labor-intensive and costly, synthetic data offers a cost-effective alternative. We introduce a Multimodal Semantic Diffusion Model (MSDM) for generating realistic pixel-precise image-mask pairs for cell and nuclei segmentation. By conditioning the generative process with cellular/nuclear morphologies (using horizontal and vertical maps), RGB color characteristics, and BERT-encoded assay/indication metadata, MSDM generates datasests with desired morphological properties. These heterogeneous modalities are integrated via multi-head cross-attention, enabling fine-grained control over the generated images. Quantitative analysis demonstrates that synthetic images closely match real data, with low Wasserstein distances between embeddings of generated and real images under matching biological conditions. The incorporation of these synthetic samples, exemplified by columnar cells, significantly improves segmentation model accuracy on columnar cells. This strategy systematically enriches data sets, directly targeting model deficiencies. We highlight the effectiveness of multimodal diffusion-based augmentation for advancing the robustness and generalizability of cell and nuclei segmentation models. Thereby, we pave the way for broader application of generative models in computational pathology.