USCNet: Transformer-Based Multimodal Fusion with Segmentation Guidance for Urolithiasis Classification

Kidney stone disease ranks among the most prevalent conditions in urology, and understanding the composition of these stones is essential for creating personalized treatment plans and preventing recurrence. Current methods for analyzing kidney stones depend on postoperative specimens, which prevents rapid classification before surgery. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a new approach called the Urinary Stone Segmentation and Classification Network (USCNet). This innovative method allows for precise preoperative classification of kidney stones by integrating Computed Tomography (CT) images with clinical data from Electronic Health Records (EHR). USCNet employs a Transformer-based multimodal fusion framework with CT-EHR attention and segmentation-guided attention modules for accurate classification. Moreover, a dynamic loss function is introduced to effectively balance the dual objectives of segmentation and classification. Experiments on an in-house kidney stone dataset show that USCNet demonstrates outstanding performance across all evaluation metrics, with its classification efficacy significantly surpassing existing mainstream methods. This study presents a promising solution for the precise preoperative classification of kidney stones, offering substantial clinical benefits. The source code has been made publicly available: https://github.com/ZhangSongqi0506/KidneyStone.