  Multiple instance learning (MIL) is a supervised learning methodology that
aims to allow models to learn instance class labels from bag class labels,
where a bag is defined to contain multiple instances. MIL is gaining traction
for learning from weak labels but has not been widely applied to 3D medical
imaging. MIL is well-suited to clinical CT acquisitions since (1) the highly
anisotropic voxels hinder application of traditional 3D networks and (2)
patch-based networks have limited ability to learn whole volume labels. In this
work, we apply MIL with a deep convolutional neural network to identify whether
clinical CT head image volumes possess one or more large hemorrhages (>
20cm$^3$), resulting in a learned 2D model without the need for 2D slice
annotations. Individual image volumes are considered separate bags, and the
slices in each volume are instances. Such a framework sets the stage for
incorporating information obtained in clinical reports to help train a 2D
segmentation approach. Within this context, we evaluate the data requirements
to enable generalization of MIL by varying the amount of training data. Our
results show that a training size of at least 400 patient image volumes was
needed to achieve accurate per-slice hemorrhage detection. Over a five-fold
cross-validation, the leading model, which made use of the maximum number of
training volumes, had an average true positive rate of 98.10%, an average true
negative rate of 99.36%, and an average precision of 0.9698. The models have
been made available along with source code to enabled continued exploration and
adaption of MIL in CT neuroimaging.
