Integration of Self-Supervised BYOL in Semi-Supervised Medical Image Recognition

Abstract: Image recognition techniques heavily rely on abundant labeled data, particularly in medical contexts. Addressing the challenges associated with obtaining labeled data has led to the prominence of self-supervised learning and semi-supervised learning, especially in scenarios with limited annotated data. In this paper, we proposed an innovative approach by integrating self-supervised learning into semi-supervised models to enhance medical image recognition. Our methodology commences with pre-training on unlabeled data utilizing the BYOL method. Subsequently, we merge pseudo-labeled and labeled datasets to construct a neural network classifier, refining it through iterative fine-tuning. Experimental results on three different datasets demonstrate that our approach optimally leverages unlabeled data, outperforming existing methods in terms of accuracy for medical image recognition.