Interactive Medical Image Segmentation

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Overview

Interactive medical image segmentation studies how people and AI can work together to create and correct masks of anatomy, lesions, and surgical structures, making image analysis more accurate and annotation less laborious. Common approaches use promptable foundation models guided by clicks, boxes, scribbles, or language, alongside mask propagation, uncertainty-based review, and online adaptation from corrections. Methods are evaluated across 2D images, 3D CT and MRI volumes, ultrasound, and surgical video, often measuring both segmentation quality and the number or time cost of interactions. A key challenge is making systems reliable across modalities and clinical settings while ensuring that simulated-user results translate to efficient, trustworthy workflows with real experts.

Latest papers

CardsList

48 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, down 60% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. nnInteractive Agent: General-Purpose AI Agents as 3D Image Annotators

    Oct 22, 2026Fabian Isensee, Constantin Ulrich Harsy, Maximilian Rokuss +3Medical AI AgentsTool-Using Agents

    Division of Medical Image Computing (MIC), German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany · National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg, a partnership between the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD), Heidelberg, Germany · Helmholtz Imaging, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany +4

  2. UniPro: Unified Multi-Mode Medical Image Segmentation from 2D Images to 3D Volumes via Propagation

    Oct 3, 2026Bangwei Guo, Yunhe Gao, Meng Ye +5Medical Image Segmentation3D Medical Image Segmentation

    Rutgers University · Stanford University · The University of Texas at Arlington +1

  3. Uncertainty-Guided Handshake: Efficient Human-in-the-Loop Refinement for Surgical-Grade Glioma Segmentation

    Oct 1, 2026Samuel Hart, Ahmad Yahya, Ahmed Karam EldalyInteractive Medical Image SegmentationHuman-in-the-Loop Annotation

    Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QF, United Kingdom. · Department of Nuclear Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. · UCL Hawkes Institute, University College London, Gower St., London, WC1E 6AE, United Kingdom.

  4. SAM Meets VLM: Parameter-Decoupled Full-Parameter Training for Unified Medical Reasoning and Segmentation

    Sep 29, 2026Xuyang Cao, Enyou Liu, Jun Zhao +3Interactive Medical Image SegmentationText-Guided Image Segmentation

    JDH Algo, JD Health International Inc.

  5. SAMI3D-DW: Interactive Segmentation of Any 3D Medical Images

    Sep 22, 2026Ping Gong, Shiyuan Su, Fandong Zhang +4Interactive Medical Image Segmentation3D Medical Image Segmentation

    Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Deepwise Healthcare · The University of Hong Kong

  6. BrainIAC: Interactive 3D Brain Lesion Segmentation across Heterogeneous MRI Modalities with Online Adaptation

    Sep 19, 2026Wentian Xu, Anthony P Addison, Ziyun Liang +3Medical Image Segmentation3D Medical Image Segmentation

    Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, UK

  7. Open ultrasound foundation model for robust segmentation and clinical measurement across heterogeneous settings

    Sep 16, 2026Chao Qin, Fahad Shahbaz Khan, Salman Khan +4Interactive Medical Image SegmentationUltrasound Image Segmentation

    Mohamed bin Zayed Uni. of Artificial Intelligence, Abu Dhabi, UAE. · Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Mohammed Medical City (STMC), Al Ain, UAE. · King’s College Hospital London - Dubai, Dubai, UAE. +1

  8. IMVS: Interactive Medical Volume Segmentation with Test-Time Adaptation - A New Method for Annotating Radiology Datasets

    Sep 15, 2026Abhilaksh Singh Reen, Kushal Borkar, Ritvik MahapatraInteractive Medical Image SegmentationTest-Time Adaptation

    Independent Researcher, Delhi, India · Independent Researcher, Kolkata, India · California State University, Fresno, CA, USA

  9. From Few-Shot Segmentation to Clinician-in-the-Loop Medical Image Analysis

    Sep 9, 2026Yazhou ZhuInteractive Medical Image SegmentationSelective Prediction

  10. LeCor: Learning to Be Corrected by Meta-Learned Test-Time Training for Interactive 3D Lung-Tumour Segmentation

    Sep 8, 2026Yi Luo, Yike Guo, Wenxuan Li +3Interactive Medical Image SegmentationMeta-Learning

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University · Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, Johns Hopkins University · Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University +1

  11. BS: Take the Hint - Interactive Multitracer PET/CT Lesion Segmentation with a Scribble-Conditioned ResEnc U-Net

    Sep 1, 2026Marven Sherif, Amgad Elmasry, Youssef Ghazal +1Interactive Medical Image SegmentationU-Net

    Brightskies

  12. GazeRefine: Expert Gaze as a Test-Time Prompt for Training-Free Medical Image Segmentation

    Sep 1, 2026Mohammed Oussama Benyahia, Marouane Tliba, Mohamed Amine Kerkouri +10Interactive Medical Image SegmentationImage Segmentation

    Université Sorbonne Paris Nord · Northwestern University · VSB-Technical University of Ostrava

  13. Expert-like Bone Ultrasound Segmentation through Expert-in-the-loop Mask-conditioned Progressive Learning

    Aug 31, 2026Arash Tavangar, Larissa K. Chiu, Hamidreza Khodashenas +2Interactive Medical Image SegmentationUltrasound Image Segmentation

    Department of Surgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada · Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, QC, Canada · Division of Orthopedic Surgery, Department of Surgery, McGill University,2026 Montreal, QC, Canada

  14. Pretrained, Curriculum-Tuned, and Ensembled: A Tracer-Aware Interactive Segmentation Pipeline for AutoPET V

    Aug 31, 2026Xinglong Liang, Chunyao Lu, Tianyu Zhang +4Interactive Medical Image SegmentationPET/CT Imaging

    Department of Radiology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Plesmanlaan 121, 1066 CX, Amsterdam, the Netherlands · Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Radboud University Medical Centre, Geert Grooteplein 10, 6525 GA, Nijmegen, The Netherlands · Faculty of Applied Sciences, Macao Polytechnic University, 999078, Macao Special Administrative Region of China +2

  15. Anatomy-Aware Promptable Segmentation with Online Interactive Training for AUTOPET V

    Aug 28, 2026Pablo Lozano-Jimenez, Sergio Romero-Tapiador, Ruben TolosanaMedical Image SegmentationPET/CT Tumor Segmentation

    University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Science, Amsterdam, The Netherlands · BiometricsAI, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain

  16. Prompt-Guided Interactive Segmentation of Interstitial Lung Disease in Thoracic CT

    Aug 28, 2026Vasilis Dedousis, Lubnaa Abdur Rahman, Lorenzo Brigatο +8Medical Image SegmentationInteractive Medical Image Segmentation

    University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland · Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, Bern, Switzerland · Department of Diagnostic, Interventional, and Pediatric Radiology, Bern University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland +2

  17. Three-Phase Scribble-Adaptive Curriculum Learning for autoPETV Grand Challenge

    Aug 22, 2026Libo Zhang, Yue NingInteractive Medical Image SegmentationMedical Image Segmentation

    Duke University

  18. Prompt-Conditioned Channel Attention for Hierarchical Feature Modulation toward Anatomy-Agnostic Segmentation

    Aug 20, 2026Mosharof Hossain, Md Rabiul Islam, Limon Halder +2Medical Image SegmentationPromptable Image Segmentation

    Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Khulna-9203, Bangladesh · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA · Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK

  19. Text-Guided Refinement of Multi-sequence Glioma Subregion Segmentation with a Vision-Language Foundation Model

    Aug 5, 2026Zach Eidex, Yu-nong Lin, Mojtaba Safari +4Interactive Medical Image SegmentationMedical Imaging Foundation Models

    Department of Biomedical Informatics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA · Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA · Department of Radiation Oncology, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA

  20. OsteoCAD: A Human-in-the-Loop Cloud-Edge Framework for Bone Tumor Segmentation

    Jul 31, 2026Maximo Rodriguez-Herrero, Dante D. Sanchez-Gallegos, Heriberto Aguirre-Meneses +3Interactive Medical Image SegmentationMedical Image Segmentation

    Department of Computer Science University Carlos III of Madrid, Leganes, Spain · Instituto Nacional de Rehabilitacion “Luis Guillermo Ibarra Ibarra”, Mexico City, Mexico · Cinvestav Tamaulipas, Cd. Victoria, Mexico

  21. Effect of User-Prompted Priors on Semi-Automated Cancer Lesion Segmentation in Whole-Body Computed Tomography

    Jul 27, 2026Isac Stark, Johan Öfverstedt, Elin Lundström +3Interactive Medical Image SegmentationMedical Image Segmentation

    Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University, Sweden · Department of Surgical Sciences, SciLifeLab, Uppsala University, Sweden · Antaros Medical, Mölndal, Sweden

  22. SLIP: Segmentation with Low-latency Interactive Prompting for 3D Medical Images

    Jul 24, 2026Baptiste Podvin, Alexandre Ancel, Flavio Milana +8Interactive Medical Image SegmentationPromptable Image Segmentation

    IRCAD France, Strasbourg, France · Division of Hepatobiliary and General Surgery, Department of Surgery, IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan, Italy · Department of Biomedical Sciences, Humanitas University, Milan, Italy +2

  23. Understanding From Human Perspective: A Multi-agent System for Interactive Egocentric Medical Image Segmentation

    Jul 19, 2026Rongjun Ge, Dongyang Wang, Heng Zhu +3Interactive Medical Image SegmentationReferring Video Object Segmentation

    School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China · School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China · Sichuan University-Pittsburgh Institute, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China +1

  24. UniMedSeg: Unified In-Context Learning for Multi-Paradigm 2D/3D Medical Image Segmentation

    Jul 14, 2026Yunzhou Li, Jiesi Hu, Yanwu Yang +5Interactive Medical Image SegmentationMedical Imaging Foundation Models

    Harbin Institute of Technology at Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China · Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China · University Hospital Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany +2

  25. PGE-SAM: Prompt-Guided Feature Enhancement for Interactive Segmentation under Degradation

    Jun 29, 2026Tuan-Duc Nguyen, Anh-Tuan Mai, Duc-Trong LeInteractive Medical Image SegmentationImage Segmentation

    FPT Software AI Center · VNU University of Engineering and Technology

  26. Human and AI collaboration for pulmonary nodule segmentation

    Jun 21, 2026Hongqiao Dong, Wenhao Chi, Ruobing Liang +9Interactive Medical Image SegmentationMedical Imaging Foundation Models

    State Key Laboratory of Mathematical Sciences, Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China · School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China · Yau Mathematical Sciences Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China +5

  27. Enhancing MedSAM with a Lightweight Box Predictor for Medical Image Segmentation

    Jun 3, 2026Amirhossein Movahedisefat, Amirreza Fateh, Mohammad Reza MohammadiInteractive Medical Image SegmentationMedical Imaging Foundation Models

    School of Computer Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran

  28. BBR-Net: Boundary-Balanced Replay for Continual Medical Image Segmentation

    Jun 2, 2026Zahid Ullah, Sieun Choi, Jihie KimInteractive Medical Image SegmentationUltrasound Image Segmentation

    Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Dongguk University, Seoul, 04620, Republic of Korea

  29. One Click per Cell Type Suffices: Training-free Group Interaction for Cell Instance Segmentation

    May 28, 2026Sanghyun Jo, Seo Jin Lee, Seohyung Hong +4Interactive Medical Image SegmentationCross-Modality Medical Image Segmentation

    1OGQ, Korea · 2Seoul National University, Korea · 3LG CNS, Korea

  30. EchoPilot: Training-Free Ultrasound Video Segmentation via Scale-Space Semantic Prompting and Reliability-Gated Memory

    May 25, 2026Ruiqiang Xiao, Zhaohu Xing, Yijun Yang +4Interactive Medical Image SegmentationImage Segmentation

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) · Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University · Hong Kong Metropolitan University