Medical Image Segmentation

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Overview

Medical image segmentation assigns labels to pixels or voxels to outline structures such as tumors, organs, vessels, and surgical instruments, enabling quantitative analysis and clinical workflows. Common approaches include U-Net-style convolutional networks, transformers and state-space models, and promptable foundation models; work also uses anatomical and topological priors, text guidance, and generative models. To reduce reliance on dense expert labels, researchers study self-supervised pretraining, semi- and weakly supervised learning, synthetic data, and interactive annotation, while domain adaptation addresses differences across scanners, hospitals, and modalities. A central challenge is making models reliable beyond their training data: high overlap scores can conceal boundary, connectivity, small-lesion, or subgroup failures, so external validation, uncertainty estimates, and clinically relevant metrics remain important.

Latest papers

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788 papers62 papers in the last four weeks, down 29% on the four weeks before. 0.4% of all new papers.

  1. Learning from Noisy Prompts: Saliency-Guided Prompt Distillation for Robust Segmentation with SAM

    Apr 25, 2026Jingxuan Kang, Ziqi Zhang, Shaoming Zheng +9Medical Imaging Foundation ModelsPromptable Image Segmentation

    Imperial College London · Beihang University · National Health Service +1

  2. SemiGDA: Generative Dual-distribution Alignment for Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation

    Apr 25, 2026Kaiwen Huang, Yi Zhou, Yizhe Zhang +2Distribution MatchingSemi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation

    Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China · Southeast University, Nanjing, China

  3. DyABD: The Abdominal Muscle Segmentation in Dynamic MRI Benchmark

    Apr 25, 2026Niamh Belton, Victoria Joppin, Aonghus Lawlor +4Image SegmentationMagnetic Resonance Imaging

    School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. · Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research Training in Machine2026 Learning, Dublin, Ireland. · Aix Marseille Univ, Univ Gustave Eiffel, LBA, Marseille France. +4

  4. Protect the Brain When Treating the Heart: A Convolutional Neural Network for Detecting Emboli

    Apr 24, 2026Andrea Angino, Ken Trotti, Diego Ulisse Pizzagalli +3Ultrasound Image SegmentationImage Segmentation

    Universit`a della Svizzera Italiana (USI), Center for Computational Medicine in Cardiology (CCMC) · Unidistance Suisse · King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), AMCS/CEMSE Division +2

  5. Uni-Encoder Meets Multi-Encoders: Representation Before Fusion for Brain Tumor Segmentation with Missing Modalities

    Apr 24, 2026Peibo Song, Xiaotian Xue, Jinshuo Zhang +5Cross-Modality Medical Image SegmentationHybrid CNN-Transformer Architectures

    School of Mathematics, Shandong University · 2GSFS, The University of Tokyo · 3MedVisAI Lab +2

  6. PanGuide3D: Cohort-Robust Pancreas Tumor Segmentation via Probabilistic Pancreas Conditioning and a Transformer Bottleneck

    Apr 22, 2026Sunny Joy Ma, Xiang MaMedical Image SegmentationComputed Tomography

    Trailridge School, Waukee, IA, 50263, USA · Department of Biochemistry, Grand View University, Des Moines, IA 50316, USA · Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA

  7. MAE-Based Self-Supervised Pretraining for Data-Efficient Medical Image Segmentation Using nnFormer

    Apr 22, 2026R. M. Krishna Sureddi, T. Satyanarayana Murthy, Nomula Varsha Reddy +2Self-Supervised Pre-TrainingMedical Image Segmentation

    Information Technology, Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, India

  8. MambaLiteUNet: Cross-Gated Adaptive Feature Fusion for Robust Skin Lesion Segmentation

    Apr 22, 2026Md Maklachur Rahman, Soon Ki Jung, Tracy HammondMambaMulti-Scale Feature Fusion

    Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA · Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea

  9. Weighted Knowledge Distillation for Semi-Supervised Segmentation of Maxillary Sinus in Panoramic X-ray Images

    Apr 22, 2026Juha Park, Jiho Choi, Jong Pil Yun +4Medical ImagingDental Imaging

    Division of Electronics and Information Engineering, College of Engineering, Jeonbuk National University, 567, Baekje-daero, Deokjin-gu, 54896, Jeonju, Republic of Korea · Manufacturing AI Research Center, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH), Incheon 21999, Republic of Korea · KITECH School, University of Science and Technology, Cheonan 31056, Republic of Korea +2

  10. MedFlowSeg: Flow Matching for Medical Image Segmentation with Frequency-Aware Attention

    Apr 21, 2026Zhi Chen, Runze Hu, Le ZhangFlow MatchingMedical Image Segmentation

    School of Engineering, University of Birmingham · School of Public Health, Peking University

  11. RF-HiT: Rectified Flow Hierarchical Transformer for General Medical Image Segmentation

    Apr 21, 2026Ahmed Marouane Djouamaa, Abir Belaala, Abdellah Zakaria Sellam +3Image SegmentationVision Transformer

    Dept. of Computer Science, Mohamed Khider University, Biskra, Algeria · Inst. of Applied Sciences and Intelligent Systems, National Research Council of Italy, 73100 Lecce, Italy · Dept. of Computer Science and AI, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, San Sebastian, Spain +1

  12. CrossPan: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Cross-Sequence Pancreas MRI Segmentation and Generalization

    Apr 20, 2026Linkai Peng, Cuiling Sun, Zheyuan Zhang +10Image SegmentationMagnetic Resonance Imaging

    Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA. · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA. · Department of Computer Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA. +4

  13. Align then Refine: Text-Guided 3D Prostate Lesion Segmentation

    Apr 20, 2026Cuiling Sun, Linkai Peng, Adam Murphy +9Cross-Modality Medical Image SegmentationText-Guided Image Segmentation

    Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA · Department of Urology, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA · Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA

  14. DSA-CycleGAN: A Domain Shift Aware CycleGAN for Robust Multi-Stain Glomeruli Segmentation

    Apr 20, 2026Zeeshan Nisar, Friedrich Feuerhake, Thomas LampertImage SegmentationHistopathology Image Segmentation

    ⋆ICube, University of Strasbourg, France · †Institute of Pathology, Hannover Medical School, Germany

  15. Is SAM3 ready for pathology segmentation?

    Apr 20, 2026Qiuyu Kong, Shakiba Sharifi, Yiming Wang +2Computational PathologyImage Segmentation

    Sapienza University of Rome · University of Verona · Fondazione Bruno Kessler

  16. Attention-ResUNet for Automated Fetal Head Segmentation

    Apr 20, 2026Ammar Bhilwarawala, Mainak BandyopadhyayUltrasound Image SegmentationMedical Image Segmentation

    School of Computer Engineering, KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, India

  17. Sharpening Lightweight Models for Generalized Polyp Segmentation: A Boundary Guided Distillation from Foundation Models

    Apr 20, 2026Shivanshu Agnihotri, Snehashis Majhi, Deepak Ranjan NayakImage SegmentationVision Foundation Model Adaptation

    Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur, India

  18. AI Approach for MRI-only Full-Spine Vertebral Segmentation and 3D Reconstruction in Paediatric Scoliosis

    Apr 20, 2026Nathasha Naranpanawa, Maree T. Izatt, Robert D. Labrom +23D ReconstructionMagnetic Resonance Imaging

    1Biomechanics and Spine Research Group, School of Mechanical, Medical, and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane · Centre for Biomedical Technologies, School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane · 3Orthopaedics Department, Queensland Children’s Hospital, Brisbane, Australia

  19. From Adaptation to Generalization: Adaptive Visual Prompting for Medical Image Segmentation

    Apr 19, 2026Evren Çetinkaya, Sangmin Lee, Jung Uk Kim +2Domain GeneralizationMedical Image Segmentation

    Technical University of Munich · Korea University · Kyung Hee University +1

  20. SegTTA: Training-Free Test-Time Augmentation for Zero-Shot Medical Imaging Segmentation

    Apr 19, 2026Yihong Yao, Chunlei Li, Canxuan Gang +4Image SegmentationMedical Imaging Foundation Models

    AI Geeks · Qingdao Municipal Hospital · University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

  21. SGP-SAM: Self-Gated Prompting for Transferring 3D Segment Anything Models to Lesion Segmentation

    Apr 19, 2026Zequan Yao, Zixuan Tang, Jielin Ma +1Image SegmentationMedical Imaging Foundation Models

    School of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen China.

  22. A Two-Stage Deep Learning Framework for Segmentation of Ten Gastrointestinal Organs from Coronal MR Enterography

    Apr 18, 2026Ashiqur Rahman, Md. Abu Sayed, Md Sharjis Ibne Wadud +3Magnetic Resonance ImagingMedical Image Segmentation

    Department of Biomedical Physics and Technology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh. · Department of Biomedical Engineering, Jashore University of Science and Technology, Jashore 7408, Bangladesh. · Department of Radiology, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar. +1

  23. Dental Panoramic Radiograph Analysis Using YOLO26 From Tooth Detection to Disease Diagnosis

    Apr 17, 2026Khawaja Azfar Asif, Rafaqat Alam KhanMedical ImagingMedical Image Segmentation

    Department of Software Engineering, Lahore Garrison University, DHA Phase 6, Lahore, Pakistan

  24. Topology-Driven Fusion of nnU-Net and MedNeXt for Accurate Brain Tumor Segmentation on Sub-Saharan Africa Dataset

    Apr 17, 2026Prabin Bohara, Pralhad Kumar Shrestha, Arpan Rai +8Medical Image SegmentationOncology

    Institute of Engineering, Thapathali Campus, Nepal · Gandaki College of Engineering and Science, Pokhara University, Pokhara, Nepal · Nepal Engineering College, Changunarayan-4, Bhaktapur, Nepal +9

  25. TwinTrack: Post-hoc Multi-Rater Calibration for Medical Image Segmentation

    Apr 17, 2026Tristan Kirscher, Alexandra Ertl, Klaus Maier-Hein +3Image SegmentationPost-Hoc Calibration

    ICube, Institut Strauss · ICube Laboratory, CNRS UMR-7357, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France · CLCC Institut Strauss, Strasbourg, France +6

  26. SegMix:Shuffle-based Feedback Learning for Semantic Segmentation of Pathology Images

    Apr 17, 2026Zhiling Yan, Sicheng Chen, Tianyi Zhang +3Computational PathologyImage Segmentation

    JD AI Research, Beijing, China · School of Microelectronics, Xi’an Jiaotong University · Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University

  27. CTSCAN: Evaluation Leakage in Chest CT Segmentation and a Reproducible Patient-Disjoint Benchmark

    Apr 16, 2026Anton IvchenkoData LeakageImage Segmentation

  28. SegWithU: Uncertainty as Perturbation Energy for Single-Forward-Pass Risk-Aware Medical Image Segmentation

    Apr 16, 2026Tianhao Fu, Austin Wang, Charles Chen +2Image SegmentationUncertainty Quantification

    University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada · Vector Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada · Project Neura, Toronto, ON, Canada +4

  29. Efficient Search of Implantable Adaptive Cells for Medical Image Segmentation

    Apr 16, 2026Emil Benedykciuk, Marcin Denkowski, Grzegorz M. WójcikImage SegmentationU-Net

    Institute of Computer Science and Mathematics, Maria Curie Sklodowska University, Akademicka 9, Lublin, 20-033,, Poland

  30. ASGNet: Adaptive Spectrum Guidance Network for Automatic Polyp Segmentation

    Apr 16, 2026Yanguang Sun, Hengmin Zhang, Jianjun Qian +2Medical Image AnalysisPolyp Segmentation

    PCA Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Intelligent Perception and Systems for High-Dimensional Information of Ministry of Education, School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China · School of Information Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China