Towards Generalizable Tumor Synthesis

Tumor synthesis enables the creation of artificial tumor examples in medical images, facilitating the training of AI models for tumor detection and segmentation. However, success in tumor synthesis hinges on creating visually realistic tumors that are generalizable across multiple organs and, furthermore, the resulting AI models being capable of detecting real tumors in images sourced from different medical domains (e.g., hospitals). This paper made a progressive stride toward generalizable tumor synthesis by leveraging a critical observation: early-stage tumors ($<$ 2cm) tend to have similar imaging characteristics in computed tomography (CT), whether they originate in the liver, pancreas, or kidneys. We have ascertained that generative AI models, e.g., Diffusion Models, can create realistic tumors generalized to a range of organs even when trained on a limited number of tumor examples from just one organ. Moreover, we have shown that AI models trained on these synthetic tumors can be generalized to detect and segment real tumors from CT volumes, encompassing a broad spectrum of patient demographics, imaging protocols, and healthcare facilities. The code is attached as supplementary material and will be released.