Advancing human-centric AI for robust X-ray analysis through holistic self-supervised learning (2405.01469v1)

Abstract: AI Foundation models are gaining traction in various applications, including medical fields like radiology. However, medical foundation models are often tested on limited tasks, leaving their generalisability and biases unexplored. We present RayDINO, a large visual encoder trained by self-supervision on 873k chest X-rays. We compare RayDINO to previous state-of-the-art models across nine radiology tasks, from classification and dense segmentation to text generation, and provide an in depth analysis of population, age and sex biases of our model. Our findings suggest that self-supervision allows patient-centric AI proving useful in clinical workflows and interpreting X-rays holistically. With RayDINO and small task-specific adapters, we reach state-of-the-art results and improve generalization to unseen populations while mitigating bias, illustrating the true promise of foundation models: versatility and robustness.

Exploring RayDINO: A Versatile Big Model for Radiology

Introduction to RayDINO

RayDINO is a visual encoder based on a Vision Transformer (ViT) architecture, utilizing self-supervised learning to analyze a diverse array of radiology tasks, specifically focusing on chest X-rays. This model stands out for its massive training on over 870k images and its ability to handle a wide range of tasks—from disease classification and segmentation to generating textual reports—without task-specific fine-tuning of its core parameters.

Deep Dive into RayDINO’s Features and Capabilities

Holistic Analysis Across Multiple Radiology Tasks:

• Classification: RayDINO achieves superior performance benchmarks with an AUROC score reaching up to 88.8 on external datasets, showcasing its robustness even when predictions are made on data from geographical locations not represented in the training set.
• Segmentation: Demonstrating detailed anatomical understanding, RayDINO excels in segmentation tasks (like distinguishing between different organs and bones), boasting an mDice score up to 96.0 which indicates high accuracy in overlapping with expert annotations.
• Report Generation: In producing radiology reports, RayDINO's performance matches or exceeds other state-of-the-art methods, ensuring that the generated text aligns closely with professional radiologist reports.

Training and Evaluation:

RayDINO is trained through a self-supervised method called DINOv2, where it learns from the raw visual data without reliance on text annotations or labeled data. This training method promotes a comprehensive understanding of the visual inputs. For evaluations, RayDINO was tested across various datasets encompassing a wide range of geographical locations and patient demographics, further underscoring its generalization capabilities.

Impact on Healthcare and Future Implications

• Enhanced Accessibility: By streamlining the interpretation of chest X-rays and achieving high accuracy, RayDINO could significantly enhance diagnostic processes in medical facilities, especially in regions with limited access to skilled radiologists.
• Reducing Biases: The model’s training on a vast and diverse dataset helps mitigate common biases associated with AI in healthcare, making it a reliable tool across different populations.
• Future of AI in Radiology: RayDINO's success in employing self-supervised learning sets a potential future direction for developing AI models in healthcare that are less dependent on extensive annotated datasets, which are often costly and time-consuming to prepare.

Challenges and Limitations

Despite its strengths, RayDINO faces challenges typical of large AI models in healthcare:

• The model's adaptability to new, unseen types of X-ray procedures or rare pathological findings remains to be thoroughly tested in real-world clinical settings.
• Ensuring that the model continues to perform well across continually evolving clinical practices and imaging technologies will require ongoing updates and evaluations.

Conclusion

RayDINO represents a significant step forward in applying AI to radiology, capable of delivering nuanced and highly accurate interpretations of chest X-rays. Its versatility across different tasks and robustness against biases make it a promising tool for global healthcare systems. As AI continues to integrate into medical diagnostics, models like RayDINO highlight the potential for these technologies to support and enhance clinical decision-making across the world.