FedSyncBN: BatchNorm Synchronization for Pulmonary Vascular Anomaly Detection in Heterogeneous Federated Learning
摘要
Federated Learning (FL) enables decentralized model training without sharing sensitive data, but statistical heterogeneity introduces biases in BatchNorm (BN) layers, compromising model generalization. This work proposes a strategy for federated learning (FedSyncBN) that synchronizes BatchNorm statistics (mean and variance) during aggregation, combining diferent data sizes and class balances to compute adaptive weights for synchronization. A pre-trained EfficientNet-B0 model adapted for binary classification of 15600 chest X-rays from normal subjects and patients with vascular anomalies was used. A federated environment of 10 clients was simulated, including double heterogeneity: sample sizes distributed via Pareto (α = 2.5; range 240–2400 samples/client) and extreme class proportions generated via Dirichlet sampling (α = 0.52), reflecting real-world clinical disparities. The FedSyncBN was compared against FedAvg and FedProx using local and global metricsS. FedSyncBN strategy improved global generalization, achieving a centralized AUC-ROC of 0.9340 (+1.0% vs. FedAvg) and recall of 0.9400 (+3.5%), with a 20.5% reduction in false positives compared to FedAvg. FedProx showed better local diagnostic balance (F1-Score = 0.9310) but incurred higher false-negative rates (+44.8% vs. FedAvg), limiting its clinical applicability in critical scenarios. FedAvg maintained intermediate balance but poorer generalization in heterogeneous environments. FedSyncBN is proposed as a solution to mitigate BatchNorm statistical biases in FL with heterogeneous data, enhancing generalization and diagnostic balance in collaborative radiology models, and facilitating practical deployment in multicenter clinical settings.