# SPG-CDENet: Spatial Prior-Guided Cross Dual Encoder Network for Multi-Organ Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26390 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.26390/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Oct 2025.

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

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [V-Net: Fully Convolutional Neural Networks for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04797/) (2016)
- [TransUNet: Transformers Make Strong Encoders for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.04306/) (2021)
- [UNet++: A Nested U-Net Architecture for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.10165/) (2018)
- [Attention U-Net: Learning Where to Look for the Pancreas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03999/) (2018)
- [Swin-Unet: Unet-like Pure Transformer for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05537/) (2021)
- [CoTr: Efficiently Bridging CNN and Transformer for 3D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03024/) (2021)
- [Mixed Transformer U-Net For Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.04734/) (2021)
- [HiFormer: Hierarchical Multi-scale Representations Using Transformers for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.08518/) (2022)
- [TransDeepLab: Convolution-Free Transformer-based DeepLab v3+ for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.00713/) (2022)
- [TransNorm: Transformer Provides a Strong Spatial Normalization Mechanism for a Deep Segmentation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.13415/) (2022)
- [The Fully Convolutional Transformer for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00566/) (2022)
- [Multi-view Aggregation Network for Dichotomous Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07445/) (2024)
- [DAE-Former: Dual Attention-guided Efficient Transformer for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.13504/) (2022)
- [G-CASCADE: Efficient Cascaded Graph Convolutional Decoding for 2D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16175/) (2023)
- [Hierarchical 3D fully convolutional networks for multi-organ segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.06382/) (2017)
- [Enhancing Medical Image Segmentation with TransCeption: A Multi-Scale Feature Fusion Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10847/) (2023)
- [Dcl-Net: Dual Contrastive Learning Network for Semi-Supervised Multi-Organ Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03512/) (2024)
- [ParaTransCNN: Parallelized TransCNN Encoder for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.15307/) (2024)
- [PG-SAM: Prior-Guided SAM with Medical for Multi-organ Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18227/) (2025)
- [SACNet: A Spatially Adaptive Convolution Network for 2D Multi-organ Medical Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10157/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Multi-organ segmentation is a critical task in computer-aided diagnosis. While recent deep learning methods have achieved remarkable success in image segmentation, huge variations in organ size and shape challenge their effectiveness in multi-organ segmentation. To address these challenges, we propose a Spatial Prior-Guided Cross Dual Encoder Network (SPG-CDENet), a novel two-stage segmentation paradigm designed to improve multi-organ segmentation accuracy. Our SPG-CDENet consists of two key components: a spatial prior network and a cross dual encoder network. The prior network generates coarse localization maps that delineate the approximate ROI, serving as spatial guidance for the dual encoder network. The cross dual encoder network comprises four essential components: a global encoder, a local encoder, a symmetric cross-attention module, and a flow-based decoder. The global encoder captures global semantic features from the entire image, while the local encoder focuses on features from the prior network. To enhance the interaction between the global and local encoders, a symmetric cross-attention module is proposed across all layers of the encoders to fuse and refine features. Furthermore, the flow-based decoder directly propagates high-level semantic features from the final encoder layer to all decoder layers, maximizing feature preservation and utilization. Extensive qualitative and quantitative experiments on two public datasets demonstrate the superior performance of SPG-CDENet compared to existing segmentation methods. Furthermore, ablation studies further validate the effectiveness of the proposed modules in improving segmentation accuracy.