Anatomy-Guided Multitask Learning for MRI-Based Classification of Placenta Accreta Spectrum and its Subtypes
Journal:
arXiv
Published Date:
May 23, 2025
Abstract
Placenta Accreta Spectrum Disorders (PAS) pose significant risks during
pregnancy, frequently leading to postpartum hemorrhage during cesarean
deliveries and other severe clinical complications, with bleeding severity
correlating to the degree of placental invasion. Consequently, accurate
prenatal diagnosis of PAS and its subtypes-placenta accreta (PA), placenta
increta (PI), and placenta percreta (PP)-is crucial. However, existing
guidelines and methodologies predominantly focus on the presence of PAS, with
limited research addressing subtype recognition. Additionally, previous
multi-class diagnostic efforts have primarily relied on inefficient two-stage
cascaded binary classification tasks. In this study, we propose a novel
convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture designed for efficient
one-stage multiclass diagnosis of PAS and its subtypes, based on 4,140 magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) slices. Our model features two branches: the main
classification branch utilizes a residual block architecture comprising
multiple residual blocks, while the second branch integrates anatomical
features of the uteroplacental area and the adjacent uterine serous layer to
enhance the model's attention during classification. Furthermore, we implement
a multitask learning strategy to leverage both branches effectively.
Experiments conducted on a real clinical dataset demonstrate that our model
achieves state-of-the-art performance.
