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Journal of ZheJiang University (Engineering Science)  2026, Vol. 60 Issue (5): 1082-1091    DOI: 10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2026.05.017
    
Multi-scale residual learning combined with Dilformer for dual-stream medical image registration network
Jing PENG(),Jiarong YAN,Jiaying LIU,Ziyi WEI,Shan BAI,Yahong DENG
School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China
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Abstract  

To address the challenges of low registration accuracy under complex deformations and limited generalization ability in existing medical image registration algorithms, a dual-stream registration network that integrates multi-scale residual learning with a multi-dilated perception Transformer (Dilformer) was proposed. First, a multi-scale residual learning block (MSR) was introduced to enhance feature representation during the dual-stream pyramid feature extraction stage. Then, the Dilformer module was designed to construct a heterogeneous receptive field interaction mechanism using multi-rate dilated convolutions, thereby improving the model’s global modeling capacity at low-resolution scales. Subsequently, a separable residual fusion block (SRF) was developed to effectively fuse multi-scale features and enhance the accuracy of the predicted deformation field. Finally, a multi-resolution loss function was introduced to supervise network training across multiple scales, further improving registration performance. Experimental results on the 3D brain MRI datasets LPBA40 and preprocessed IXI demonstrate that the proposed network achieves superior accuracy compared to state-of-the-art models. Specifically, on the IXI dataset, the proposed network achieves a Dice similarity coefficient of 0.769, a 95th percentile Hausdorff distance of 8.937, a negative Jacobian determinant rate of 0.029, and an inference time of 0.29 s. These results confirm the effectiveness and practical applicability of the proposed network in complex deformation medical image registration tasks.



Key wordsimage registration      dilated convolution      Transformer      MRI image      multi-resolution loss     
Received: 03 June 2025      Published: 06 May 2026
CLC:  TP391  
Fund:  国家自然科学基金资助项目(62241106,61861025);智能化隧道监理机器人研究项目(中铁科研院字2020-KJ016-Z016-A2);甘肃省重点研发计划(甘科计[2024]10号-24YFGA037);甘肃省科技专员专项(甘科计[2023]18号-23CXGA0008).
Cite this article:

Jing PENG,Jiarong YAN,Jiaying LIU,Ziyi WEI,Shan BAI,Yahong DENG. Multi-scale residual learning combined with Dilformer for dual-stream medical image registration network. Journal of ZheJiang University (Engineering Science), 2026, 60(5): 1082-1091.

URL:

https://www.zjujournals.com/eng/10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2026.05.017     OR     https://www.zjujournals.com/eng/Y2026/V60/I5/1082


多尺度残差学习结合Dilformer的双流医学图像配准网络

针对现有医学图像配准算法存在复杂形变配准精度低和模型泛化能力差的问题,提出多尺度残差学习结合多膨胀感知Transformer(Dilformer)的双流医学图像配准网. 提出多尺度残差学习模块(MSR),在双流金字塔特征提取阶段,增强网络特征的表达能力. 设计Dilformer,通过多膨胀率扩张卷积构建异质感受野特征交互机制,增强模型在低尺度空间的全局建模能力. 提出可分离残差融合模块(SRF),融合多尺度特征信息以提升模型预测形变场的准确性. 引入多分辨率损失函数,在不同尺度上约束网络训练,提升配准性能. 实验结果表明,所提网络在3D MRI脑部LPBA40和预处理的IXI数据集上配准精度均优于现有对比模型. 在IXI数据集上,所提网络的戴斯相似系数为0.769,95%分位豪斯多夫距离为8.937,负雅克比行列式比率为0.029,推理时间为0.29 s,证明了该网络在复杂形变医学图像配准中的有效性和实用性.


关键词: 图像配准,  扩张卷积,  Transformer,  核磁共振图像,  多分辨率损失 
Fig.1 Unsupervised dual-stream medical image registration framework
Fig.2 Multi-scale residual learning combined with Dilformer for dual-stream medical image registration network
Fig.3 Multi-scale residual learning block
Fig.4 Multi-dilated perception Transformer module
Fig.5 2D slice images from IXI and LPBA40 datasets
Fig.6 IXI dataset preprocessing procedure
模型DSC/%HD95$ {R}_{{\mathrm{Jac}}} $Np/106Flops/109t/s
SyN64.1±1.610.878<0.00141.83
LDDMM67.9±1.510.672<0.00131.60
VoxelMorph72.9±1.210.4311.6040.28304.310.21
CycleMorph73.6±1.810.3481.5230.36160.570.25
LKU-Net76.4±1.110.1070.7132.09272.630.23
ViT-V-Net73.0±1.210.3051.68131.56389.210.31
TransMorph75.1±1.39.7411.565107.76713.540.38
TransMatch75.0±3.09.6531.59470.71717.230.37
PIVit75.7±2.69.3270.4540.6571.190.26
RDP-Net76.1±1.19.1560.1368.922889.000.27
MSRD-Net76.9±2.08.9370.02913.95863.170.29
Tab.1 Quantitative analysis results of each medical image registration model on IXI dataset
Fig.7 Qualitative analysis results of each medical image registration model on IXI dataset
DilConvr=1,1,1r=1,2,3r=2,2,2DSC/%t/s
××××75.3±1.50.28
××76.2±1.70.31
×××76.8±2.10.29
×××75.6±1.80.32
Tab.2 Dilation rate analysis results on IXI dataset
Fig.8 Module ablation study results on IXI dataset
模型组别MSRDBTSRFMR LossDSC/%HD95$ {R}_{{\mathrm{Jac}}} $
1××××74.6±1.69.8390.574
2×××75.6±1.79.6450.387
3×××76.3±1.89.1210.213
4×××75.8±1.59.5160.316
5×76.7±1.69.0130.127
676.9±2.08.9370.029
Tab.3 Comparison of performance metrics for module ablation study on IXI dataset
Fig.9 Model generalization performance experimental results on LPBA40 dataset
模型DSC/%HD95$ {R}_{{\mathrm{Jac}}} $t/s
SyN62.7±1.27.59±1.62<0.00135.8
LDDMM61.3±1.57.61±1.53<0.00132.6
VoxelMorph65.7±2.97.65±1.470.6070.20
CycleMorph67.1±2.97.58±1.450.4970.22
LKU-Net70.3±1.57.39±1.570.2030.29
ViT-V-Net67.0±2.97.57±1.720.2070.35
TransMorph69.4±2.17.43±1.850.1610.36
TransMatch70.3±1.67.49±1.440.1830.35
PIVit71.5±1.56.51±1.560.0220.26
RDP-Net71.6±1.76.43±1.83<0.0010.28
MSRD-Net72.9±1.56.32±1.710.1170.27
Tab.4 Generalization validation data of model on LPBA40 dataset
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