Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41161557›Full record

ArticleJournal of biomedical informatics2025

Vision-language model-based semantic-guided imaging biomarker for lung nodule malignancy prediction.

Luoting Zhuang, Seyed Mohammad Hossein Tabatabaei, Ramin Salehi-Rad, Linh M Tran, Denise R Aberle, Ashley E Prosper, William Hsu

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of biomedical informatics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Review
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Luoting ZhuangMedical & Imaging Informatics, Department of Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, 90095, CA, USA.
Seyed Mohammad Hossein TabatabaeiMedical & Imaging Informatics, Department of Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, 90095, CA, USA.
Ramin Salehi-RadDepartment of Medicine, Division of Pulmonology and Critical Care, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, 90095, CA, USA; VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, 90073, CA, USA.
Linh M TranDepartment of Medicine, Division of Pulmonology and Critical Care, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, 90095, CA, USA; VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, 90073, CA, USA.
Denise R AberleMedical & Imaging Informatics, Department of Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, 90095, CA, USA.
Ashley E ProsperMedical & Imaging Informatics, Department of Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, 90095, CA, USA.
William HsuMedical & Imaging Informatics, Department of Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, 90095, CA, USA. Electronic address: whsu@mednet.ucla.edu.

Funding

EFIRM Liquid Biopsy Research Laboratory: Early Lung Cancer AssessmentU01CA233370 · NCI · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · PI ABERLE, DENISE R., HSU, WILLIAM · 2018 to 2025
$8.0M
The Boston University - UCLA Lung Cancer Biomarker Characterization CenterU2CCA271898 · NCI · BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CAMPUS · PI Marc Elliott Lenburg · 2022 to 2026
$5.5M
BLRD VA I01 BX005721BLRD VA IK2 BX006194NCI NIH HHS U01 CA233370NCI NIH HHS U2C CA271898
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveMachine learning models have utilized semantic features, deep features, or both to assess lung nodule malignancy. However, their reliance on manual annotation during inference, limited interpretability, and sensitivity to imaging variations hinder their application in real-world clinical settings. Thus, this research aims to integrate semantic features derived from radiologists' assessments of nodules, guiding the model to learn clinically relevant, robust, and explainable imaging features for predicting lung cancer.

methodsWe obtained 938 low-dose CT scans from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) with 1,261 nodules and semantic features. Additionally, the Lung Image Database Consortium dataset contains 1,018 CT scans, with 2,625 lesions annotated for nodule characteristics. Three external datasets were obtained from UCLA Health, the LUNGx Challenge, and the Duke Lung Cancer Screening. For imaging input, we obtained 2D nodule slices in nine directions from 50×50×50mm nodule crop. We converted structured semantic features into sentences using Gemini. We fine-tuned a pretrained Contrastive Language-Image Pretraining (CLIP) model with a parameter-efficient fine-tuning approach to align imaging and semantic text features and predict the one-year lung cancer diagnosis.

resultsOur model outperformed the state-of-the-art (SOTA) models in the NLST test set with an AUROC of 0.901 and AUPRC of 0.776. It also showed robust results in external datasets. Using CLIP, we also obtained predictions on semantic features through zero-shot inference, such as nodule margin (AUROC: 0.807), nodule consistency (0.812), and pleural attachment (0.840).

conclusionBy incorporating semantic features into the vision-language model, our approach surpasses the SOTA models in predicting lung cancer from CT scans collected from diverse clinical settings. It provides explainable outputs, aiding clinicians in comprehending the underlying meaning of model predictions. The code is available at https://github.com/luotingzhuang/CLIP_nodule.

Indexed as

Lung NeoplasmsSemanticsSolitary Pulmonary NoduleDatabases, FactualHumansMachine LearningTomography, X-Ray ComputedComputed tomographyLung cancer early detectionSemantic featuresVision-language model

Identifiers

PMID41161557
PMCPMC13283286

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.