The impact of implementing backbone architectures on fracture segmentation in X-ray images

Abstract

X-ray imaging is widely utilized for the detection of bone fractures due to its affordability, rapid processing capabilities, broad accessibility, and ease of use. Despite these advantages, the intricate analysis of X-ray images necessitates advanced computational techniques to fully exploit their rich informational content. Notably, accurate segmentation of these images plays a critical role in aiding medical professionals with precise diagnoses and effective treatment planning. This study examines the impact of integrating different backbone architectures for the task of fracture segmentation in X-ray images. Specifically, the research focuses on enhancing the widely-used DeepLabV3 model by incorporating pre-trained networks such as ResNet50, ResNet101, and MobileNetV3 into the encoder component to improve feature extraction and segmentation accuracy. The FracAtlas dataset, which presents unique challenges due to its small size and the diversity of fractures from various anatomical regions, was employed for model evaluation. Data augmentation techniques were implemented to expand the dataset, and an additional subset focusing on cropped images of fracture areas was developed. The models were trained over 50 epochs, and their performance was assessed using metrics such as Intersection over Union (IoU), loss values, and Dice scores. The results indicate that the DeepLabV3 model with ResNet-based backbones achieved IoU values exceeding 0.93 on the original dataset and demonstrated outstanding performance on the augmented and cropped datasets, with AUC values reaching up to 0.99. The study also highlights the computational complexity of the models, with ResNet101 exhibiting the highest time complexity, while MobileNetV3 was the most efficient in terms of processing time and memory consumption.