LCOV-Net: A lightweight CNN for 3D image segmentation with knowledge distillation

This repository provides the code for the LCOV-Net that was publihsed on ISBI 2021 and IEEE TMI 2023:

• Q. Zhao, L. Zhong, J. Xiao, J. Zhang, Y. Chen, W. Liao, S. Zhang, G. Wang. “Efficient Multi-Organ Segmentation from 3D Abdominal CT Images with Lightweight Network and Knowledge Distillation.” IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 42, no. 9 (2023): 2513-2523.

• Q. Zhao, H. Wang, G. Wang. "LCOV-NET: A Lightweight Neural Network For COVID-19 Pneumonia Lesion Segmentation From 3D CT Images", in IEEE ISBI, pp 42-45, 2021.

Visual comparison between different networks for abdominal organ segmentation on the WORD dataset.

Overview of our proposed lightweight LCOV-Net and KD strategies. LCOV-Net is built on our Lightweight Attention-based Convolutional Blocks (LACB-H and LACB-L) to reduce the model size. To improve itsmperformance, we introduce Class-Affinity Knowledge Distillation (CAKD) and Multi-Scale Knowledge Distillation (MSKD) as shown in (c) to effectively distill knowledge from a heavy-weight teacher model to LCOV-Net. Note that for simplicity, the KD losses are only shown for the highest resolution level.

Our proposed LACB for efficient computation.

Dataset

Please contact Xiangde (luoxd1996 AT gmail DOT com) for the WORD dataset (the label of the testing set can be downloaded now labelTs). Two steps are needed to download and access the dataset: 1) using your google email to apply for the download permission (Goole Driven, BaiduPan); 2) using your affiliation email to get the unzip password/BaiduPan access code. We will get back to you within two days, so please don't send them multiple times. We just handle the real-name email and your email suffix must match your affiliation. The email should contain the following information:

Name/Homepage/Google Scholar: (Tell us who you are.)
Primary Affiliation: (The name of your institution or university, etc.)
Job Title: (E.g., Professor, Associate Professor, Ph.D., etc.)
Affiliation Email: (the password will be sent to this email, we just reply to the email which is the end of "edu".)
How to use: (Only for academic research, not for commercial use or second-development.)

In addition, this work is still ongoing, the WORD dataset will be extended to larger and more diverse (more patients, more organs, and more modalities, more clinical hospitals' data and MR Images will be considered to include future), any suggestion, comment, collaboration, and sponsor are welcome.

How to use

1. Install PyMIC, and add files to Pymic.
2. Download the pretrained model and example CT images from Baidu Netdisk (extract code 9jlj).
3. Run ./KD/run.sh. The results will be saved in ./KD/model/kd.

How to Cite

BibTeX entry for this work:

@article{zhao2023tmi,
author={Zhao, Qianfei and Zhong, Lanfeng and Xiao, Jianghong and Zhang, Jingbo and Chen, Yinan and Liao, Wenjun and Zhang, Shaoting and Wang, Guotai},
journal={IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging}, 
title={Efficient Multi-Organ Segmentation From 3D Abdominal CT Images With Lightweight Network and Knowledge Distillation}, 
year={2023},
volume={42},
number={9},
pages={2513-2523},
doi={10.1109/TMI.2023.3262680}}

@inproceedings{zhao2021isbi,
author={Zhao, Qianfei and Wang, Huan and Wang, Guotai},
booktitle={2021 IEEE 18th International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI)}, 
title={LCOV-NET: A Lightweight Neural Network For COVID-19 Pneumonia Lesion Segmentation From 3D CT Images}, 
year={2021},
pages={42-45},
doi={10.1109/ISBI48211.2021.9434023}}