# Attention-gated U-Net model for semantic segmentation of brain tumors and feature extraction for survival prognosis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.15067 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.15067/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [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)
- [Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03167/) (2015)
- [Squeeze-and-Excitation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.01507/) (2017)
- [Group Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.08494/) (2018)
- [Attention U-Net: Learning Where to Look for the Pancreas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03999/) (2018)
- [Instance Normalization: The Missing Ingredient for Fast Stylization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.08022/) (2016)
- [UNETR: Transformers for 3D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.10504/) (2021)
- [Swin UNETR: Swin Transformers for Semantic Segmentation of Brain Tumors in MRI Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.01266/) (2022)
- [Identifying the Best Machine Learning Algorithms for Brain Tumor Segmentation, Progression Assessment, and Overall Survival Prediction in the BRATS Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.02629/) (2018)
- [Recurrent Residual Convolutional Neural Network based on U-Net (R2U-Net) for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.06955/) (2018)
- [Concurrent Spatial and Channel Squeeze & Excitation in Fully Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.02579/) (2018)
- [nnU-Net for Brain Tumor Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00848/) (2020)
- [No New-Net](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.10483/) (2018)
- [Brain tumor segmentation with self-ensembled, deeply-supervised 3D U-net neural networks: a BraTS 2020 challenge solution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01045/) (2020)
- [Reciprocal Adversarial Learning for Brain Tumor Segmentation: A Solution to BraTS Challenge 2021 Segmentation Task](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03777/) (2022)
- [3D Semantic Segmentation of Brain Tumor for Overall Survival Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.11576/) (2020)
- [Uncertainty-driven refinement of tumor-core segmentation using 3D-to-2D networks with label uncertainty](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.06436/) (2020)
- [A Review on End-To-End Methods for Brain Tumor Segmentation and Overall Survival Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.01632/) (2020)
- [Glioblastoma Multiforme Patient Survival Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.10589/) (2021)
- [Brain tumour segmentation using a triplanar ensemble of U-Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.11356/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Gliomas, among the most common primary brain tumors, vary widely in aggressiveness, prognosis, and histology, making treatment challenging due to complex and time-intensive surgical interventions. This study presents an Attention-Gated Recurrent Residual U-Net (R2U-Net) based Triplanar (2.5D) model for improved brain tumor segmentation. The proposed model enhances feature representation and segmentation accuracy by integrating residual, recurrent, and triplanar architectures while maintaining computational efficiency, potentially aiding in better treatment planning. The proposed method achieves a Dice Similarity Score (DSC) of 0.900 for Whole Tumor (WT) segmentation on the BraTS2021 validation set, demonstrating performance comparable to leading models. Additionally, the triplanar network extracts 64 features per planar model for survival days prediction, which are reduced to 28 using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN). This approach achieves an accuracy of 45.71%, a Mean Squared Error (MSE) of 108,318.128, and a Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient (SRC) of 0.338 on the test dataset.