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A Guideline-Aware AI Agent for Zero-Shot Target Volume Auto-Delineation

arXiv cs.CV / 3/11/2026

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Key Points

  • The article introduces OncoAgent, a guideline-aware AI agent designed for zero-shot clinical target volume (CTV) delineation in radiotherapy without requiring retraining on new clinical guidelines.
  • OncoAgent converts textual clinical guidelines directly into 3D target contours, achieving high Dice similarity coefficients comparable to fully supervised deep learning models like nnU-Net.
  • In blinded clinical evaluations, physicians preferred OncoAgent over traditional supervised baselines, citing better guideline compliance and easier modification with higher clinical acceptability.
  • The framework generalizes effectively across different anatomical sites and alternative guidelines, enabling near-instant adaptability without retraining, which enhances scalability and interpretability in radiotherapy planning.
  • This approach addresses significant limitations of current models that depend heavily on costly expert annotations and retraining each time clinical protocols change.

Computer Science > Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

arXiv:2603.09448 (cs)
[Submitted on 10 Mar 2026]

Title:A Guideline-Aware AI Agent for Zero-Shot Target Volume Auto-Delineation

View a PDF of the paper titled A Guideline-Aware AI Agent for Zero-Shot Target Volume Auto-Delineation, by Yoon Jo Kim and 9 other authors
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Abstract:Delineating the clinical target volume (CTV) in radiotherapy involves complex margins constrained by tumor location and anatomical barriers. While deep learning models automate this process, their rigid reliance on expert-annotated data requires costly retraining whenever clinical guidelines update. To overcome this limitation, we introduce OncoAgent, a novel guideline-aware AI agent framework that seamlessly converts textual clinical guidelines into three-dimensional target contours in a training-free manner. Evaluated on esophageal cancer cases, the agent achieves a zero-shot Dice similarity coefficient of 0.842 for the CTV and 0.880 for the planning target volume, demonstrating performance highly comparable to a fully supervised nnU-Net baseline. Notably, in a blinded clinical evaluation, physicians strongly preferred OncoAgent over the supervised baseline, rating it higher in guideline compliance, modification effort, and clinical acceptability. Furthermore, the framework generalizes zero-shot to alternative esophageal guidelines and other anatomical sites (e.g., prostate) without any retraining. Beyond mere volumetric overlap, our agent-based paradigm offers near-instantaneous adaptability to alternative guidelines, providing a scalable and transparent pathway toward interpretability in radiotherapy treatment planning.
Comments:
Subjects: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.09448 [cs.CV]
  (or arXiv:2603.09448v1 [cs.CV] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.09448
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arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Submission history

From: Han Joo Chae [view email]
[v1] Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:00:01 UTC (1,915 KB)
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