Enhanced thyroid nodule detection and diagnosis: a mobile-optimized DeepLabV3+ approach for clinical deployments

This study aims to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of thyroid nodule segmentation in ultrasound images, ultimately improving nodule detection and diagnosis. For clinical deployment on mobile and embedded devices, DeepLabV3+ strives to achieve a balance between a lightweight architecture and high segmentation accuracy.

A comprehensive dataset of ultrasound images was meticulously curated using a high-resolution ultrasound imaging device. Data acquisition adhered to standardized protocols to ensure high-quality imaging. Preprocessing steps, including noise reduction and contrast optimization, were applied to enhance image clarity. Expert radiologists provided ground truth labels through meticulous annotation. To improve segmentation performance, we integrated MobileNetV2 and Depthwise Separable Dilated Convolution into the Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling (ASPP) module, incorporating the Pyramid Pooling Module (PPM) and attention mechanisms. To mitigate classification imbalances, we employed Tversky loss functions in the ultrasound image classification process.

In semantic image segmentation, DeepLabV3+ achieved an impressive Intersection over Union (IoU) of 94.37%, while utilizing only 12.4 MB of parameters, including weights and biases. This remarkable accuracy demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach. A high IoU value in medical imaging analysis reflects the model's ability to accurately delineate object boundaries.

DeepLabV3+ represents a significant advancement in thyroid nodule segmentation, particularly for thyroid cancer screening and diagnosis. The obtained segmentation results suggest promising directions for future research, especially in the early detection of thyroid nodules. Deploying this algorithm on mobile devices offers a practical solution for early diagnosis and is likely to improve patient outcomes.