Toward a robust lesion detection model in breast DCE-MRI: adapting foundation models to high-risk women

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Main Authors: Nascimento, Gabriel A. B. do, Dong, Vincent, Cavalcante, Guilherme J., Nguyen, Alex, Rêgo, Thaís G. do, Malheiros, Yuri, Filho, Telmo M. Silva, Torrez, Carla R. Zeballos, Gee, James C., McCarthy, Anne Marie, Maidment, Andrew D. A., Barufaldi, Bruno
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Nascimento, Gabriel A. B. do
Dong, Vincent
Cavalcante, Guilherme J.
Nguyen, Alex
Rêgo, Thaís G. do
Malheiros, Yuri
Filho, Telmo M. Silva
Torrez, Carla R. Zeballos
Gee, James C.
McCarthy, Anne Marie
Maidment, Andrew D. A.
Barufaldi, Bruno
author_facet Nascimento, Gabriel A. B. do
Dong, Vincent
Cavalcante, Guilherme J.
Nguyen, Alex
Rêgo, Thaís G. do
Malheiros, Yuri
Filho, Telmo M. Silva
Torrez, Carla R. Zeballos
Gee, James C.
McCarthy, Anne Marie
Maidment, Andrew D. A.
Barufaldi, Bruno
contents Accurate breast MRI lesion detection is critical for early cancer diagnosis, especially in high-risk populations. We present a classification pipeline that adapts a pretrained foundation model, the Medical Slice Transformer (MST), for breast lesion classification using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI). Leveraging DINOv2-based self-supervised pretraining, MST generates robust per-slice feature embeddings, which are then used to train a Kolmogorov--Arnold Network (KAN) classifier. The KAN provides a flexible and interpretable alternative to conventional convolutional networks by enabling localized nonlinear transformations via adaptive B-spline activations. This enhances the model's ability to differentiate benign from malignant lesions in imbalanced and heterogeneous clinical datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that the MST+KAN pipeline outperforms the baseline MST classifier, achieving AUC = 0.80 \pm 0.02 while preserving interpretability through attention-based heatmaps. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of combining foundation model embeddings with advanced classification strategies for building robust and generalizable breast MRI analysis tools.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_02710
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Toward a robust lesion detection model in breast DCE-MRI: adapting foundation models to high-risk women
Nascimento, Gabriel A. B. do
Dong, Vincent
Cavalcante, Guilherme J.
Nguyen, Alex
Rêgo, Thaís G. do
Malheiros, Yuri
Filho, Telmo M. Silva
Torrez, Carla R. Zeballos
Gee, James C.
McCarthy, Anne Marie
Maidment, Andrew D. A.
Barufaldi, Bruno
Medical Physics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Accurate breast MRI lesion detection is critical for early cancer diagnosis, especially in high-risk populations. We present a classification pipeline that adapts a pretrained foundation model, the Medical Slice Transformer (MST), for breast lesion classification using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI). Leveraging DINOv2-based self-supervised pretraining, MST generates robust per-slice feature embeddings, which are then used to train a Kolmogorov--Arnold Network (KAN) classifier. The KAN provides a flexible and interpretable alternative to conventional convolutional networks by enabling localized nonlinear transformations via adaptive B-spline activations. This enhances the model's ability to differentiate benign from malignant lesions in imbalanced and heterogeneous clinical datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that the MST+KAN pipeline outperforms the baseline MST classifier, achieving AUC = 0.80 \pm 0.02 while preserving interpretability through attention-based heatmaps. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of combining foundation model embeddings with advanced classification strategies for building robust and generalizable breast MRI analysis tools.
title Toward a robust lesion detection model in breast DCE-MRI: adapting foundation models to high-risk women
topic Medical Physics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.02710