Cited by 1,054Advanced Neural Network ApplicationsDomain Adaptation and Few-Shot LearningCell Image Analysis Techniques

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 45 of the 45 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 13 of the 25 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

MedMNIST v2 - A large-scale lightweight benchmark for 2D and 3D biomedical image classification

Open access

Abstract

We introduce MedMNIST v2 , a large-scale MNIST-like dataset collection of standardized biomedical images, including 12 datasets for 2D and 6 datasets for 3D. All images are pre-processed into a small size of 28 × 28 (2D) or 28 × 28 × 28 (3D) with the corresponding classification labels so that no background knowledge is required for users. Covering primary data modalities in biomedical images, MedMNIST v2 is designed to perform classification on lightweight 2D and 3D images with various dataset scales (from 100 to 100,000) and diverse tasks (binary/multi-class, ordinal regression, and multi-label). The resulting dataset, consisting of 708,069 2D images and 9,998 3D images in total, could support numerous research/educational purposes in biomedical image analysis, computer vision, and machine learning. We benchmark several baseline methods on MedMNIST v2, including 2D/3D neural networks and open-source/commercial AutoML tools. The data and code are publicly available at https://medmnist.com/ .

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

MedMNIST v2 is a standardized MNIST-like benchmark of 12 2D datasets (708,069 images) and 6 3D datasets (9,998 images) for biomedical image classification at 28×28 or 28×28×28. It benchmarks ResNets and AutoML tools, finding ResNets competitive and 3D/ACS convolutions generally better than 2.5D on 3D datasets.

Key findings

  • MedMNIST v2 contains 12 2D datasets totaling 708,069 images and 6 3D datasets totaling 9,998 images, all preprocessed to 28×28 (2D) or 28×28×28 (3D), covering binary/multi-class, ordinal regression, and multi-label tasks.
  • On MedMNIST2D, Google AutoML Vision achieved the highest average AUC (0.927), close to ResNet-18 (224) (0.925) and ResNet-50 (224) (0.923); ResNets had higher average ACC (0.821 for ResNet-18/50 at 224) than Google AutoML Vision (0.809). auto-sklearn was lowest (average AUC 0.878, ACC 0.722).
  • On MedMNIST3D, ResNet-50 + 3D convolution achieved the best average AUC (0.863) and ACC (0.780); ResNet-18 + 3D was 0.849/0.767, auto-sklearn 0.815/0.765, and AutoKeras 0.763/0.737. 2.5D models were inferior to 3D and ACS models.
  • Under the same ResNet backbone, 224 resolution generally outperformed 28 on 2D; at 28, ResNet-18 often outperformed ResNet-50. For 3D, 3D and ACS models were comparable, and ResNet-50 with 3D convolution surpassed ResNet-18.

Methods

  • Dataset construction: 12 2D and 6 3D datasets from source datasets, preprocessed to MNIST-like sizes via cubic spline interpolation; official splits used where available, otherwise 9:1 train-validation from training or 7:1:2 patient-level random split; labels from source datasets, sometimes simplified.
  • Benchmark: ResNet-18/50 with early stopping for 2D (28 or 224 input) and ResNet-18/50 with 2.5D/3D/ACS convolutions for 3D; auto-sklearn, AutoKeras, and Google AutoML Vision (2D only); training used cross-entropy, Adam, batch size 128 for 2D and 32 for 3D, 100 epochs, and learning-rate decay.
  • Evaluation: AUC and ACC per dataset and average over MedMNIST2D/MedMNIST3D; each benchmark was repeated at least 3 times.

Limitations

  • Stated: the dataset is NOT intended for clinical use; substantially reducing resolution may yield images insufficient to represent and capture different disease pathologies.
  • Stated: labels could be simplified (merged or deleted classes) if classification on small images is too difficult.
  • Evident from the text: the benchmark focuses on the machine-learning part rather than end-to-end systems; 3D datasets are much smaller (9,998 total) than 2D datasets (708,069), and AdrenalMNIST3D source CT scans are not provided due to patient privacy.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41597-022-01721-8

Cites

45 of 45 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Figures

Fig. 1 An overview of MedMNIST v2. MedMNIST is a large-scale MNIST-like collection of standardized 2D and 3D biomedical images with classification labels. It is designed to be diverse, standardized, educational, and lightweight, which could support numerous research/educational purposes.
Fig. 1 An overview of MedMNIST v2. MedMNIST is a large-scale MNIST-like collection of standardized 2D and 3D biomedical images with classification labels. It is designed to be diverse, standardized, educational, and lightweight, which could support numerous research/educational purposes.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 2 The landscape of MedMNIST v2. The horizontal axis denotes the base-10 logarithm of the dataset scale, and the vertical axis denotes base-10 logarithm of imaging resolution. The upward and downward triangles are used to distinguish between 2D datasets and 3D datasets, and the 4 different colors represent different tasks.
Fig. 2 The landscape of MedMNIST v2. The horizontal axis denotes the base-10 logarithm of the dataset scale, and the vertical axis denotes base-10 logarithm of imaging resolution. The upward and downward triangles are used to distinguish between 2D datasets and 3D datasets, and the 4 different colors represent different tasks.CC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

27 No basis given · 16 Own result · 7 Own interpretation · 6 Supported · 4 Own method · 3 Partly supported · 3 Sources not found · 3 No full text of the sources · 1 Supported so far · 1 Couldn’t confirm · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 28 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 31
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 17
43 of 43
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The classification labels from the source datasets are accurate and suitable for the benchmark tasks.

    “The MedMNIST uses the classification labels from the source datasets directly in most cases, but the labels could be simplified (merged or deleted classes) if the classification tasks on the small images are too difficult.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Resizing biomedical images to 28 × 28 (2D) or 28 × 28 × 28 (3D) preserves sufficient information for meaningful classification.

    “All images are pre-processed into a MNIST-like format, i.e., 28 × 28 (2D) or 28 × 28 × 28 (3D), with cubic spline interpolation operation for image resizing.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The official data splits from source datasets avoid data leakage.

    “We use the official data split from source dataset (if provided) to avoid data leakage.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Patient-level random splitting avoids data leakage for datasets without official splits.

    “For the dataset without an official split, we split the dataset randomly at the patient level with a ratio of 7:1:2 into training-validation-test.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The selected 18 datasets are representative of primary data modalities and tasks in biomedical image analysis.

    “The MedMNIST v2 dataset consists of 12 2D and 6 3D standardized datasets from carefully selected sources covering primary data modalities (e.g., X-ray, OCT, ultrasound, CT, electron microscope), diverse classification tasks (binary/multi-class, ordinal regression, and multi-label) and dataset scales (from 100 to 100,000).”
5 of 5

Citations

Cites

Show all 43 references

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Pedregosa, F. et al. Scikit-learn: Machine learning in python. the Journal of machine Learning research 12, 2825–2830 (2011).

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Sorted by citations

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Metadata

Authors
Yang, J., Shi, R., Wei, D., Liu, Z., Zhao, L., Ke, B., Pfister, H., & Ni, B.
Affiliations
  • Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
  • Boston College (US)
  • RWTH Aachen University (DE)
  • Fudan University (CN)
  • Harvard University (US)
Corresponding author
Ni, Bingbing
Venue
Scientific Data
Published
2023-01-19
Volume
10
Issue
1
Pages
41-41
ISSN
2052-4463 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4317436377
Cited by
1,043
References
43
Citations by year
2026: 355 · 2025: 373 · 2024: 203 · 2023: 101
Type
data paper
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Scientific Data (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (U20B200011, 61976137)
  • Shanghai Jiao Tong University (YG2021ZD18)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Advanced Neural Network Applications
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Domain Adaptation and Few-Shot Learning
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Biophysics › Cell Image Analysis Techniques
Keywords
biomedical image classification, 3D medical images, benchmark dataset, ordinal regression, multi-label classification, automated machine learning, 3D neural networks
MeSH terms
Machine Learning, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Neural Networks, Computer, Benchmarking, Imaging, Three-Dimensional

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