MedEdit: Counterfactual Diffusion-Based Image Editing on Brain MRI

Malek Ben Alaya, Daniel M. Lang, Benedikt Wiestler, Julia A. Schnabel, Cosmin I. Bercea

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Denoising diffusion probabilistic models enable high-fidelity image synthesis and editing. In biomedicine, these models facilitate counterfactual image editing, producing pairs of images where one is edited to simulate hypothetical conditions. For example, they can model the progression of specific diseases, such as stroke lesions. However, current image editing techniques often fail to generate realistic biomedical counterfactuals, either by inadequately modeling indirect pathological effects like brain atrophy or by excessively altering the scan, which disrupts correspondence to the original images. Here, we propose MedEdit, a conditional diffusion model for medical image editing. MedEdit induces pathology in specific areas while balancing the modeling of disease effects and preserving the original scan’s integrity. We evaluated MedEdit on the Atlas v2.0 stroke dataset using Frechet Inception Distance and Dice scores, outperforming state-of-the-art diffusion-based methods such as Palette (by 45%) and SDEdit (by 61%). Additionally, clinical evaluations by a board-certified neuroradiologist confirmed that MedEdit generated realistic stroke scans indistinguishable from real ones. We believe this work will enable counterfactual image editing research to further advance the development of realistic and clinically useful imaging tools.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSimulation and Synthesis in Medical Imaging - 9th International Workshop, SASHIMI 2024, Held in Conjunction with MICCAI 2024, Proceedings
EditorsVirginia Fernandez, Jelmer M. Wolterink, David Wiesner, Samuel Remedios, Lianrui Zuo, Adrià Casamitjana
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages167-176
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9783031732805
DOIs
StatePublished - 2025
Event9th International Workshop on Simulation and Synthesis in Medical Imaging, SASHIMI 2024, held in conjunction with the 27th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2024 - Marrakesh, Morocco
Duration: 10 Oct 202410 Oct 2024

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume15187 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference9th International Workshop on Simulation and Synthesis in Medical Imaging, SASHIMI 2024, held in conjunction with the 27th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2024
Country/TerritoryMorocco
CityMarrakesh
Period10/10/2410/10/24

Keywords

  • Biomedical imaging
  • Conditional Multimodal Learning

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