# MedCondDiff: Lightweight, Robust, Semantically Guided Diffusion for Medical Image Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.00350 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.00350/

## 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 20 of its 24 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Nov 2025.

## Placed in

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

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [V-Net: Fully Convolutional Neural Networks for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04797/) (2016)
- [Pyramid Vision Transformer: A Versatile Backbone for Dense Prediction without Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12122/) (2021)
- [IP-Adapter: Text Compatible Image Prompt Adapter for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06721/) (2023)
- [T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.08453/) (2023)
- [All are Worth Words: A ViT Backbone for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.12152/) (2022)
- [A large annotated medical image dataset for the development and evaluation of segmentation algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.09063/) (2019)
- [SegDiff: Image Segmentation with Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.00390/) (2021)
- [AbdomenCT-1K: Is Abdominal Organ Segmentation A Solved Problem?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.14808/) (2020)
- [MedSegDiff: Medical Image Segmentation with Diffusion Probabilistic Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.00611/) (2022)
- [DiffusionInst: Diffusion Model for Instance Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.02773/) (2022)
- [Diff-UNet: A Diffusion Embedded Network for Volumetric Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.10326/) (2023)
- [Exploring the Synergies of Hybrid CNNs and ViTs Architectures for Computer Vision: A survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02941/) (2024)
- [Recent Advances in Medical Imaging Segmentation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09274/) (2025)
- [ConSept: Continual Semantic Segmentation via Adapter-based Vision Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16674/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce MedCondDiff, a diffusion-based framework for multi-organ medical image segmentation that is efficient and anatomically grounded. The model conditions the denoising process on semantic priors extracted by a Pyramid Vision Transformer (PVT) backbone, yielding a semantically guided and lightweight diffusion architecture. This design improves robustness while reducing both inference time and VRAM usage compared to conventional diffusion models. Experiments on multi-organ, multi-modality datasets demonstrate that MedCondDiff delivers competitive performance across anatomical regions and imaging modalities, underscoring the potential of semantically guided diffusion models as an effective class of architectures for medical imaging tasks.