MLP-UNet: an algorithm for segmenting lesions in breast and thyroid ultrasound images

Breast and thyroid cancers are among the most prevalent and fastest growing malignancies worldwide with ultrasound imaging serving as the primary modality for screening and surgical navigation of these lesions. Accurate and real-time lesion segmentation in ultrasound images is crucial for guiding precise needle placement during biopsies and surgeries. To address this clinical need, we propose MLP-UNet, a deep learning model for automatic segmentation of breast tumors and thyroid nodules in ultrasound images. MLP-UNet adopts an encoder-decoder architecture with a U-shaped structure and integrates a MLP-based module(MAP) module within the encoder stage. Attention module is a lightweight employed during the skip connections to enhance feature representation. Using only using 33.75 M parameters, MLP-UNet achieves state-of-the-art segmentation performance. On the BUSI, it attains Dice, IoU, and Recall of 80.61%, 67.93%, and 80.48%, respectively. And on the DDTI, it attains Dice, IoU, and Recall of 81.67% for Dice, 71.72%. These results outperform several classical and state-of-the-art segmentation networks while maintaining low computational complexity, highlighting its significant potential for clinical application in ultrasound-guided surgical navigation systems.