TN5000: An Ultrasound Image Dataset for Thyroid Nodule Detection and Classification

Accurate diagnosis of thyroid nodules using ultrasonography is a highly valuable, but challenging task. With the emergence of artificial intelligence, deep learning based methods can provide assistance to radiologists, whose performance heavily depends on the quantity and quality of training data, but current ultrasound image datasets for thyroid nodule either directly utilize the TI-RADS assessments as labels or are not publicly available. Faced with these issues, an open-access ultrasound image dataset for thyroid nodule detection and classification is proposed, i.e. the TN5000, which comprises 5,000 B-mode ultrasound images of thyroid nodule, as well as complete annotations and biopsy confirmations by expert radiologists. Additionally, the statistical characteristics of this proposed dataset have been analyzed clearly, some baseline methods for the detection and classification of thyroid nodules are recommended as the benchmark, along with their evaluation results. To our best knowledge, TN5000 is the largest open-access ultrasound image dataset of thyroid nodule with professional labeling, and is the first ultrasound image dataset designed both for the thyroid nodule detection and classification. These kinds of images with annotations can contribute to analyze the intrinsic properties of thyroid nodules and to determine the necessity of FNA biopsy, which are crucial in ultrasound diagnosis.