# Vision Foundation Models in Radiology: A Scoping Review of Data, Methodology, Evaluation and Clinical Translation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.07219 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.07219/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 38 of its 103 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Jul 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Emerging Properties in Self-Supervised Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14294/) (2021)
- [Bootstrap your own latent: A new approach to self-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07733/) (2020)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Self-supervised Learning: Algorithms, Applications, and Future Trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.05712/) (2023)
- [On the Challenges and Perspectives of Foundation Models for Medical Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05705/) (2023)
- [USFM: A Universal Ultrasound Foundation Model Generalized to Tasks and Organs towards Label Efficient Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.00153/) (2023)
- [Advances in Medical Image Analysis with Vision Transformers: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.03505/) (2023)
- [FUTURE-AI: International consensus guideline for trustworthy and deployable artificial intelligence in healthcare](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.12325/) (2023)
- [Overcoming Data Scarcity in Biomedical Imaging with a Foundational Multi-Task Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.09847/) (2023)
- [BrainSegFounder: Towards 3D Foundation Models for Neuroimage Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10395/) (2024)
- [Large-Scale 3D Medical Image Pre-training with Geometric Context Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.09890/) (2024)
- [BrainMass: Advancing Brain Network Analysis for Diagnosis with Large-scale Self-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.01433/) (2024)
- [A generalizable 3D framework and model for self-supervised learning in medical imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.11755/) (2025)
- [Foundation Models in Radiology: What, How, When, Why and Why Not](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.18730/) (2024)
- [EVA-X: A Foundation Model for General Chest X-ray Analysis with Self-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.05237/) (2024)
- [UltraSam: A Foundation Model for Ultrasound using Large Open-Access Segmentation Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16222/) (2024)
- [Towards Foundation Models and Few-Shot Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning for Volumetric Organ Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17051/) (2023)
- [From Pretraining to Privacy: Federated Ultrasound Foundation Model with Self-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16380/) (2024)
- [SegmentAnyBone: A Universal Model that Segments Any Bone at Any Location on MRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.12974/) (2024)
- [Comparison of fine-tuning strategies for transfer learning in medical image classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10050/) (2024)
- [Towards a vision foundation model for comprehensive assessment of Cardiac MRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01665/) (2024)
- [Anatomical Foundation Models for Brain MRIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.07079/) (2024)
- [Hi-End-MAE: Hierarchical encoder-driven masked autoencoders are stronger vision learners for medical image segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08347/) (2025)
- [A Review of Predictive and Contrastive Self-supervised Learning for Medical Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05043/) (2023)
- [Improving Representation of High-frequency Components for Medical Visual Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.14651/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Wrong Organ, Right Physics: Transferring Echocardiography Pretraining to Lung Ultrasound for Tuberculosis Screening](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.03290/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Vision foundation models (VFMs) are increasingly being developed for radiological imaging, yet their definition, development and evaluation remain heterogeneous. We conducted a PRISMAScR scoping review of peer-reviewed studies published between January 2017 and March 2026 describing foundation models trained exclusively on radiological imaging data. Sixty-seven studies were included and mapped across three pillars: data scale and heterogeneity, architectural and pretraining scalability, and downstream transferability and generalization. Datasets primarily covered brain MRI, thoracoabdominal CT, and chest X-ray, ranging from fewer than 100,000 samples to multi-million-image cohorts. Transformer-based architectures and self-supervised pretraining predominated, particularly masked image modeling, contrastive learning and multi-stage approaches. Evaluation focused mainly on segmentation and classification, whereas cross-center, cross-scanner, anatomical and modality-shift validation was inconsistently reported. Alignment with FUTURE-AI principles was uneven. Overall, radiology-specific VFMs show promising transferability, but clinical translation remains constrained by limited data representativeness, heterogeneous benchmarks, incomplete reporting and insufficient deployment-oriented evaluation.