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Main Authors: Contreras, Jhonatan, Bocklitz, Thomas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01919
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author Contreras, Jhonatan
Bocklitz, Thomas
author_facet Contreras, Jhonatan
Bocklitz, Thomas
contents Deep learning has achieved remarkable success in medical image analysis, however its adoption in clinical practice is limited by a lack of interpretability. These models often make correct predictions without explaining their reasoning. They may also rely on image regions unrelated to the disease or visual cues, such as annotations, that are not present in real-world conditions. This can reduce trust and increase the risk of misleading diagnoses. We introduce the Guided Focus via Segment-Wise Relevance Network (GFSR-Net), an approach designed to improve interpretability and reliability in medical imaging. GFSR-Net uses a small number of human annotations to approximate where a person would focus within an image intuitively, without requiring precise boundaries or exhaustive markings, making the process fast and practical. During training, the model learns to align its focus with these areas, progressively emphasizing features that carry diagnostic meaning. This guidance works across different types of natural and medical images, including chest X-rays, retinal scans, and dermatological images. Our experiments demonstrate that GFSR achieves comparable or superior accuracy while producing saliency maps that better reflect human expectations. This reduces the reliance on irrelevant patterns and increases confidence in automated diagnostic tools.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_01919
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle GFSR-Net: Guided Focus via Segment-Wise Relevance Network for Interpretable Deep Learning in Medical Imaging
Contreras, Jhonatan
Bocklitz, Thomas
Image and Video Processing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Deep learning has achieved remarkable success in medical image analysis, however its adoption in clinical practice is limited by a lack of interpretability. These models often make correct predictions without explaining their reasoning. They may also rely on image regions unrelated to the disease or visual cues, such as annotations, that are not present in real-world conditions. This can reduce trust and increase the risk of misleading diagnoses. We introduce the Guided Focus via Segment-Wise Relevance Network (GFSR-Net), an approach designed to improve interpretability and reliability in medical imaging. GFSR-Net uses a small number of human annotations to approximate where a person would focus within an image intuitively, without requiring precise boundaries or exhaustive markings, making the process fast and practical. During training, the model learns to align its focus with these areas, progressively emphasizing features that carry diagnostic meaning. This guidance works across different types of natural and medical images, including chest X-rays, retinal scans, and dermatological images. Our experiments demonstrate that GFSR achieves comparable or superior accuracy while producing saliency maps that better reflect human expectations. This reduces the reliance on irrelevant patterns and increases confidence in automated diagnostic tools.
title GFSR-Net: Guided Focus via Segment-Wise Relevance Network for Interpretable Deep Learning in Medical Imaging
topic Image and Video Processing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01919