An Unsupervised Correlation Learning-Based Clustering Model for Multiple Complex Lesions Evaluation.

Abstract

Lesion morphology and quantity evaluation in computer tomography (CT) images are critical for precise disease diagnosis. Most existing methods employ machine learning-based methods to separately evaluate the morphology and quantity of individual lesion, neglecting the synergy between morphological structure and quantitative distribution. This limitation presents challenges when handling multiple complex lesions. This paper proposes an unsupervised correlation learning-based clustering model for evaluating lesion morphology and quantity in scenarios involving multiple complex lesions without predefined specific-logic. Specifically, the model utilizes clinical knowledge and changes in the in- or out-degree of lesion regions to learn their interdependencies, automatically recognizing domain-specific morphological features. These morphological features serve as key representations for morphology estimation and provide essential contextual information for quantity analysis. Furthermore, the model perceives quantity evaluation as a density-based clustering process. By interacting with domain-specific morphological features, the model dynamically adjusts the search objects, followed by designing morphology-specific parameter search strategies to autonomously learn spatial relationships between lesion regions. This approach facilitates the exploration of optimal parameters for accurate lesion evaluation without manual intervention. Experiments conducted on the kidney stone dataset including 53 samples and the kidney tumor dataset comprising 300 samples, indicate that the proposed model has achieved 92.45% and 95.33% accuracy in morphology analysis, respectively. For quantity analysis, the proposed model has achieved 79.25% and 94.33% accuracy, outperforming the well-performing AR-DBSCAN method by +30.19% and DRL-DBSCAN method by +6%. The proposed model is demonstrated to be effective in handling morphology and quantity estimation for multiple complex lesions.