D-S-Net: an efficient dual-stage strategy for high-precision segmentation of gross tumor volumes in lung cancer CT images

Accurate delineation of Gross Tumor Volume (GTV) in lung cancer is critical for effective radiotherapy and surgical planning. However, segmentation of GTV in high-resolution CT images remains challenging, particularly when tumors are small or have indistinct boundaries. We propose D-S-Net, a novel dual-stage strategy to enhance both the accuracy and efficiency of lung cancer GTV segmentation. In the first stage, a simplified detection network is used to locate candidate regions in high-resolution (512×512) CT slices, reducing input size and computational demand. In the second stage, a modified U-Net variant is applied to perform fine segmentation within the detected regions. The architecture incorporates a spatial attention mechanism and employs a combined loss function (binary cross-entropy and Dice loss) to address class imbalance. On the lung cancer GTV dataset, D-S-Net achieved a Dice coefficient of 78.52%, representing an improvement of 5.49% over SwinU-Net and outperforming several mainstream models. On the second dataset, D-S-Net reached a Dice coefficient of 86.56%, surpassing the second-best model by 13.19%. Ablation studies demonstrated that the detection stage, spatial attention, and combined loss function effectively improved performance, while computational complexity analysis confirmed the model's efficiency. The proposed D-S-Net offers a robust and efficient solution for the segmentation of lung cancer GTV in CT images. Its dual-stage design and attention-based enhancements contribute to both accuracy and computational gains, highlighting its potential for clinical applications in radiotherapy planning.