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Main Authors: Liang, Pengchen, Huang, Haishan, Pu, Bin, Chen, Jianguo, Hua, Xiang, Zhang, Jing, Ma, Weibo, Chen, Zhuangzhuang, Li, Yiwei, Chang, Qing
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.06976
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author Liang, Pengchen
Huang, Haishan
Pu, Bin
Chen, Jianguo
Hua, Xiang
Zhang, Jing
Ma, Weibo
Chen, Zhuangzhuang
Li, Yiwei
Chang, Qing
author_facet Liang, Pengchen
Huang, Haishan
Pu, Bin
Chen, Jianguo
Hua, Xiang
Zhang, Jing
Ma, Weibo
Chen, Zhuangzhuang
Li, Yiwei
Chang, Qing
contents Large-scale pre-trained models, such as Vision Foundation Models (VFMs), have demonstrated impressive performance across various downstream tasks by transferring generalized knowledge, especially when target data is limited. However, their high computational cost and the domain gap between natural and medical images limit their practical application in medical segmentation tasks. Motivated by this, we pose the following important question: "How can we effectively utilize the knowledge of large pre-trained VFMs to train a small, task-specific model for medical image segmentation when training data is limited?" To address this problem, we propose a novel and generalizable task-specific knowledge distillation framework. Our method fine-tunes the VFM on the target segmentation task to capture task-specific features before distilling the knowledge to smaller models, leveraging Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) to reduce the computational cost of fine-tuning. Additionally, we incorporate synthetic data generated by diffusion models to augment the transfer set, enhancing model performance in data-limited scenarios. Experimental results across five medical image datasets demonstrate that our method consistently outperforms task-agnostic knowledge distillation and self-supervised pretraining approaches like MoCo v3 and Masked Autoencoders (MAE). For example, on the KidneyUS dataset, our method achieved a 28% higher Dice score than task-agnostic KD using 80 labeled samples for fine-tuning. On the CHAOS dataset, it achieved an 11% improvement over MAE with 100 labeled samples. These results underscore the potential of task-specific knowledge distillation to train accurate, efficient models for medical image segmentation in data-constrained settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_06976
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Task-Specific Knowledge Distillation from the Vision Foundation Model for Enhanced Medical Image Segmentation
Liang, Pengchen
Huang, Haishan
Pu, Bin
Chen, Jianguo
Hua, Xiang
Zhang, Jing
Ma, Weibo
Chen, Zhuangzhuang
Li, Yiwei
Chang, Qing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Large-scale pre-trained models, such as Vision Foundation Models (VFMs), have demonstrated impressive performance across various downstream tasks by transferring generalized knowledge, especially when target data is limited. However, their high computational cost and the domain gap between natural and medical images limit their practical application in medical segmentation tasks. Motivated by this, we pose the following important question: "How can we effectively utilize the knowledge of large pre-trained VFMs to train a small, task-specific model for medical image segmentation when training data is limited?" To address this problem, we propose a novel and generalizable task-specific knowledge distillation framework. Our method fine-tunes the VFM on the target segmentation task to capture task-specific features before distilling the knowledge to smaller models, leveraging Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) to reduce the computational cost of fine-tuning. Additionally, we incorporate synthetic data generated by diffusion models to augment the transfer set, enhancing model performance in data-limited scenarios. Experimental results across five medical image datasets demonstrate that our method consistently outperforms task-agnostic knowledge distillation and self-supervised pretraining approaches like MoCo v3 and Masked Autoencoders (MAE). For example, on the KidneyUS dataset, our method achieved a 28% higher Dice score than task-agnostic KD using 80 labeled samples for fine-tuning. On the CHAOS dataset, it achieved an 11% improvement over MAE with 100 labeled samples. These results underscore the potential of task-specific knowledge distillation to train accurate, efficient models for medical image segmentation in data-constrained settings.
title Task-Specific Knowledge Distillation from the Vision Foundation Model for Enhanced Medical Image Segmentation
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.06976