Multi-cancer framework with cancer-aware attention and adversarial mutual-information minimization for whole slide image classification.

Abstract

Whole Slide Images (WSIs) are crucial in modern pathology, offering high-resolution data for accurate diagnosis, treatment planning, and research. Deep learning methods have recently been proposed to harness this data by extracting and interpreting complex patterns. However, these approaches often focus on specific tumor types, limiting their generalizability across diverse pathological conditions and restricting scalability. This relatively narrow focus ultimately stems from the inherent heterogeneity in histopathology and the diverse morphological and molecular characteristics of different tumors. To this end, we propose a novel approach for multi-cancer WSI analysis, designed to leverage the diversity of different tumor types. We introduce a Cancer-Aware Attention module that models both shared patterns across cancers and cancer-specific variations to address heterogeneity and enhance cross-tumor generalization. Furthermore, we construct an adversarial cancer regularization mechanism to minimize cancer-specific biases through mutual information minimization. Additionally, we develop a hierarchical sample balancing strategy to mitigate data imbalances and promote unbiased learning. Together, these form a cohesive framework for unbiased multi-cancer WSI analysis. Extensive experiments on a uniquely constructed multi-cancer dataset demonstrate significant improvements in generalization, providing a scalable solution for WSI classification across diverse cancer types.