Enhancing weakly supervised data augmentation networks for thyroid nodule assessment using traditional and doppler ultrasound images

Abstract

Thyroid ultrasound (US) is an essential tool for detecting and characterizing thyroid nodules. In this study, we propose an innovative approach to enhance thyroid nodule assessment by integrating Doppler US images with grayscale US images through weakly supervised data augmentation networks (WSDAN). Our method reduces background noise by replacing inefficient augmentation strategies, such as random cropping, with an advanced technique guided by bounding boxes derived from Doppler US images. This targeted augmentation significantly improves model performance in both classification and localization of thyroid nodules. The training dataset comprises 1288 paired grayscale and Doppler US images, with an additional 190 pairs used for three-fold cross-validation. To evaluate the model's efficacy, we tested it on a separate set of 190 grayscale US images. Compared to five state-of-the-art models and the original WSDAN, our Enhanced WSDAN model achieved superior performance. For classification, it reached an accuracy of 91%. For localization, it achieved Dice and Jaccard indices of 75% and 87%, respectively, demonstrating its potential as a valuable clinical tool.