Open Access

ARTICLE

Effective Deep Learning Models for the Semantic Segmentation of 3D Human MRI Kidney Images

Roshni Khedgaonkar¹, Pravinkumar Sonsare², Kavita Singh¹, Ayman Altameem³, Hameed R. Farhan⁴, Salil Bharany⁵, Ateeq Ur Rehman^6,*, Ahmad Almogren^7,*

1 Department of Computer Technology, Yeshwantrao Chavan College of Engineering, Nagpur, 441110, India
2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management, Ramdeobaba University, Nagpur, 440013, India
3 Department of Natural and Engineering Sciences, College of Applied Studies and Community Services, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11543, Saudi Arabia
4 Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Kerbala, Kerbala, 56001, Iraq
5 Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Rajpura, 140401, India
6 School of Computing, Gachon University, Seongnam-si, 13120, Republic of Korea
7 Chair of Cybersecurity, Department of Computer Science, College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11633, Saudi Arabia

* Corresponding Authors: Ateeq Ur Rehman. Email: ; Ahmad Almogren. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Healthcare Applications)

Computers, Materials & Continua 2026, 87(1), 24 https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2025.072651

Received 31 August 2025; Accepted 04 November 2025; Issue published 10 February 2026

Abstract

Recent studies indicate that millions of individuals suffer from renal diseases, with renal carcinoma, a type of kidney cancer, emerging as both a chronic illness and a significant cause of mortality. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography (CT) have become essential tools for diagnosing and assessing kidney disorders. However, accurate analysis of these medical images is critical for detecting and evaluating tumor severity. This study introduces an integrated hybrid framework that combines three complementary deep learning models for kidney tumor segmentation from MRI images. The proposed framework fuses a customized U-Net and Mask R-CNN using a weighted scheme to achieve semantic and instance-level segmentation. The fused outputs are further refined through edge detection using Stochastic Feature Mapping Neural Networks (SFMNN), while volumetric consistency is ensured through Improved Mini-Batch K-Means (IMBKM) clustering integrated with an Encoder-Decoder Convolutional Neural Network (EDCNN). The outputs of these three stages are combined through a weighted fusion mechanism, with optimal weights determined empirically. Experiments on MRI scans from the TCGA-KIRC dataset demonstrate that the proposed hybrid framework significantly outperforms standalone models, achieving a Dice Score of 92.5%, an IoU of 87.8%, a Precision of 93.1%, a Recall of 90.8%, and a Hausdorff Distance of 2.8 mm. These findings validate that the weighted integration of complementary architectures effectively overcomes key limitations in kidney tumor segmentation, leading to improved diagnostic accuracy and robustness in medical image analysis.

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