Swarm learning with weak supervision enables automatic breast cancer detection in magnetic resonance imaging

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Oliver Lester Saldanha - , Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health, University Hospital Aachen (Author)
  • Jiefu Zhu - , Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health (Author)
  • Gustav Müller-Franzes - , University Hospital Aachen (Author)
  • Zunamys I. Carrero - , University Hospital Aachen (Author)
  • Nicholas R. Payne - , University of Cambridge (Author)
  • Lorena Escudero Sánchez - , University of Cambridge, Cancer Research UK (Author)
  • Paul Christophe Varoutas - , Mitera Hospital (Author)
  • Sreenath Kyathanahally - , University of Zurich, b-rayZ AG (Author)
  • Narmin Ghaffari Laleh - , Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health (Author)
  • Kevin Pfeiffer - , Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health (Author)
  • Marta Ligero - , Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health (Author)
  • Jakob Behner - , Else Kröner-Fresenius Center for Digital Health (EKFZ) (Author)
  • Kamarul A. Abdullah - , University of Cambridge, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (Author)
  • Georgios Apostolakos - , Mitera Hospital (Author)
  • Chrysafoula Kolofousi - , Mitera Hospital (Author)
  • Antri Kleanthous - , Mitera Hospital (Author)
  • Michail Kalogeropoulos - , Mitera Hospital (Author)
  • Cristina Rossi - , University of Zurich, b-rayZ AG (Author)
  • Sylwia Nowakowska - , University of Zurich (Author)
  • Alexandra Athanasiou - , Mitera Hospital (Author)
  • Raquel Perez-Lopez - , Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) (Author)
  • Ritse Mann - , Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands Cancer Institute (Author)
  • Wouter Veldhuis - , Utrecht University (Author)
  • Julia Camps - , Ribera Healthcare Group (Author)
  • Volkmar Schulz - , Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine, RWTH Aachen University (Author)
  • Markus Wenzel - , Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine, Constructor University (Author)
  • Sergey Morozov - , European Society of Medical Imaging Informatics (EuSoMII) (Author)
  • Alexander Ciritsis - , University of Zurich (Author)
  • Christiane Kuhl - , University Hospital Aachen (Author)
  • Fiona J. Gilbert - , University of Cambridge (Author)
  • Daniel Truhn - , University Hospital Aachen (Author)
  • Jakob Nikolas Kather - , Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health, Department of Internal Medicine I, National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg (Author)

Abstract

Background: Over the next 5 years, new breast cancer screening guidelines recommending magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for certain patients will significantly increase the volume of imaging data to be analyzed. While this increase poses challenges for radiologists, artificial intelligence (AI) offers potential solutions to manage this workload. However, the development of AI models is often hindered by manual annotation requirements and strict data-sharing regulations between institutions. Methods: In this study, we present an integrated pipeline combining weakly supervised learning—reducing the need for detailed annotations—with local AI model training via swarm learning (SL), which circumvents centralized data sharing. We utilized three datasets comprising 1372 female bilateral breast MRI exams from institutions in three countries: the United States (US), Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (UK) to train models. These models were then validated on two external datasets consisting of 649 bilateral breast MRI exams from Germany and Greece. Results: Upon systematically benchmarking various weakly supervised two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) deep learning (DL) methods, we find that the 3D-ResNet-101 demonstrates superior performance. By implementing a real-world SL setup across three international centers, we observe that these collaboratively trained models outperform those trained locally. Even with a smaller dataset, we demonstrate the practical feasibility of deploying SL internationally with on-site data processing, addressing challenges such as data privacy and annotation variability. Conclusions: Combining weakly supervised learning with SL enhances inter-institutional collaboration, improving the utility of distributed datasets for medical AI training without requiring detailed annotations or centralized data sharing.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number38
Number of pages12
JournalCommunications medicine
Volume5
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 6 Feb 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0001-8501-1566/work/184442953
PubMed 39915630
ORCID /0009-0000-7643-4284/work/190572747
ORCID /0000-0002-3730-5348/work/198594662