# Applications of Sequential Learning for Medical Image Classification Source: [Applications of Sequential Learning for Medical Image Classification]() Collection index: [llms.txt]() Data updated: 2025-10-26T01:46:58.939Z Authors: Sohaib Naim, Brian Caffo, Haris I Sair, Craig K Jones Published: 2023-09-26T00:46:25.000Z ## Abstract Purpose: The aim of this work is to develop a neural network training framework for continual training of small amounts of medical imaging data and create heuristics to assess training in the absence of a hold-out validation or test set. Materials and Methods: We formulated a retrospective sequential learning approach that would train and consistently update a model on mini-batches of medical images over time. We address problems that impede sequential learning such as overfitting, catastrophic forgetting, and concept drift through PyTorch convolutional neural networks (CNN) and publicly available Medical MNIST and NIH Chest X-Ray imaging datasets. We begin by comparing two methods for a sequentially trained CNN with and without base pre-training. We then transition to two methods of unique training and validation data recruitment to estimate full information extraction without overfitting. Lastly, we consider an example of real-life data that shows how our approach would see mainstream research implementation. Results: For the first experiment, both approaches successfully reach a ~95% accuracy threshold, although the short pre-training step enables sequential accuracy to plateau in fewer steps. The second experiment comparing two methods showed better performance with the second method which crosses the ~90% accuracy threshold much sooner. The final experiment showed a slight advantage with a pre-training step that allows the CNN to cross ~60% threshold much sooner than without pre-training. Conclusion: We have displayed sequential learning as a serviceable multi-classification technique statistically comparable to traditional CNNs that can acquire data in small increments feasible for clinically realistic scenarios. ## Recorded benchmark results A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage. ## Original sources and implementation [Original paper]() [PDF]()