U-HRMLP: Refining Segmentation Boundaries in Histopathology Images

Tao Wang, Kai Zhang, Weijie Wang, Mingrui Ma, Ye Zhang, He Zhao, Guixia Liu

Abstract: Segmenting regions of interest in histopathology images is a critical prerequisite for biomedical applications. CNN-based models have advanced medical image segmentation, yet accurately delineating boundaries is still challenging. This challenge arises from the loss of spatial resolution due to downsampling and the complexity of capturing contextual information when upsampling to the original resolution. To address these issues, we design U-HRMLP, a U-shaped network based on a hybrid combination of HRNet and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP). Specifically, we propose a multi-scale feature fusion module to avoid the loss of image resolution in the encoding stage as much as possible. Simultaneously, we propose an MLP-based decoding block to recover image details and resolution progressively, alleviating the issues related to the inadequate segmentation of smaller objects and the blurring of tissue boundaries. Results on the MoNuSeg and GlaS datasets demonstrate that U-HRMLP outperforms conventional or transformer-based methods and achieves state-of- the-art performance.