Federated Learning in Renal Tumor Model

October 28, 2026 updated by: Jiwen Cheng, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University

Research on the Application of Federated Learning in the Construction of Deep Learning Models for Renal Tumor Imaging

This is a multicenter, retrospective and prospective diagnostic clinical trial evaluating the effectiveness and safety of CascadeDiagnose Renal Tumor CT, an AI-assisted detection system for renal tumors based on contrast-enhanced multiphase CT imaging. The system employs a cascaded deep learning architecture to perform fully automated analysis of multiphase CT images, covering image quality review, lesion detection and segmentation, benign-malignant differentiation, and risk stratification, with traceable evidence chains and interpretable outputs. The study is conducted across six tertiary hospitals in Guangxi, China, utilizing a distributed "data stays on-site, computation moves across centers" federated learning network, which ensures that original patient data remain within each hospital while encrypted intermediate features are shared for cross-center collaborative analysis. A total of at least 3000 patients with renal tumors will be enrolled (approximately 2600 in the retrospective phase and 400 in the prospective phase). The primary effectiveness outcomes include area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). The primary safety outcomes include false negative rate, false positive rate, and adverse events. The study also incorporates a multi-reader, multi-case (MRMC) design to compare the diagnostic performance of the AI system with radiologists of varying seniority, and to evaluate the system's utility in assisting junior radiologists. The findings of this study are expected to provide high-quality clinical evidence for the regulatory approval of this AI-assisted diagnostic system as a Class III medical device.

Study Overview

Status

Status

Indicates the current recruitment status or the expanded access status.
Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied. On ClinicalTrials.gov, conditions may also include other health-related issues, such as lifespan, quality of life, and health risks.

Study Type

Study Type

Describes the nature of a clinical study. Study types include interventional studies (also called clinical trials), observational studies (including patient registries), and expanded access.
Observational

Enrollment (Estimated)

Enrollment

The number of participants in a clinical study. The "anticipated" enrollment is the target number of participants that the researchers need for the study.
3000

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact

The name and contact information for the person who can answer enrollment questions for a clinical study. Each location where the study is being conducted may also have a specific contact, who may be better able to answer those questions.
  • Name: Hai-qi Liang, MD
  • Phone Number: 86+18176618137
  • Email: liahiki@163.com

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • China
    • Guangxi
      • Guigang, Guangxi, China, 537100
        • Guigang People's Hospital
        • Contact:
      • Guilin, Guangxi, China, 541002
        • Guilin People's Hospital
        • Contact:
      • Liuzhou, Guangxi, China, 545006
        • Liuzhou People's Hospital
        • Contact:
      • Nanning, Guangxi, China, 530021
        • The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University
        • Contact:
        • Contact:
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Shenghua Deng, MD
      • Nanning, Guangxi, China, 530021
        • Nanning Second People's Hospital
        • Contact:
      • Wuzhou, Guangxi, China, 543002
        • Wuzhou Red Cross Hospital
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

The key requirements that people who want to participate in a clinical study must meet or the characteristics they must have. Eligibility criteria consist of both inclusion criteria (which are required for a person to participate in the study) and exclusion criteria (which prevent a person from participating). Types of eligibility criteria include whether a study accepts healthy volunteers, has age or age group requirements, or is limited by sex.

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 60 years (Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Sampling Method

Probability Sample

Study Population

The study population consists of approximately 3,000 patients with pathologically confirmed renal tumors (benign or malignant) who underwent contrast-enhanced CT at ten Guangxi hospitals between January 2019 and June 2026. Cases are consecutively enrolled using a unified time window and strict inclusion/exclusion criteria. Eligible patients must have complete pre-operative contrast-enhanced CT, good image quality, and traceable clinical-pathological data. Exclusions include non-contrast CT only, severe artifacts, prior nephrectomy (except recurrence/residual), and incomplete data. Enrollment targets are 600 cases at the lead site and 300 at each of the nine participating centers.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  1. Patients pathologically confirmed as having renal tumors (either benign or malignant) by surgery or biopsy;
  2. Underwent contrastenhanced renal CT before surgery or treatment;
  3. CT images are of good quality and clearly depict the renal lesion contour;
  4. Complete and traceable clinical and pathological data.

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Patients who did not undergo contrastenhanced CT before surgery, or only had noncontrast CT;
  2. CT images with significant motion artifacts, metal artifacts, or excessive noise that impair lesion assessment;
  3. Lesions too small (maximum diameter <1 mm) or not identifiable on imaging;
  4. Patients who previously underwent partial or radical nephrectomy for renal tumors (except for recurrent/residual lesions);
  5. Incomplete clinical data or pathological results.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Observational Models: CASE_CONTROL
  • Time Perspectives: OTHER

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort

Group / Cohort

A group or subgroup of participants in an observational study that is assessed for biomedical or health outcomes.
Malignant renal tumor
Benign renal tumor

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, the planned outcome measure that is the most important for evaluating the effect of an intervention/treatment. Most clinical studies have one primary outcome measure, but some have more than one.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Dice Similarity Coefficient for Renal Tumor Segmentation
Time Frame: The primary outcome will be measured in October 2027, upon completion of model training, final parameter aggregation, and ensemble model establishment, using the test set from the multi-center retrospective cohort.

The primary outcome measure is the Dice Similarity Coefficient for renal tumor segmentation on contrast-enhanced CT, comparing the federated learning model against a centralized training model with a non-inferiority margin of Δ = -0.05. This outcome will be assessed at the end of the model training phase using an independent multi-center test set.
The primary outcome will be measured in October 2027, upon completion of model training, final parameter aggregation, and ensemble model establishment, using the test set from the multi-center retrospective cohort.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Secondary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, a planned outcome measure that is not as important as the primary outcome measure for evaluating the effect of an intervention but is still of interest. Most clinical studies have more than one secondary outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Classification Performance Metrics and Heterogeneity Impact Assessment
Time Frame: Assessed at the completion of the model training phase, approximately 18 months after study initiation, following final aggregation and ensemble construction, using the independent multi-center test set, with center-specific and subtype-specific analyses

The secondary outcomes are: (1) classification performance metrics-AUC, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity-for benign versus malignant renal tumor discrimination, with pathological diagnosis as the reference; and (2) the impact of data heterogeneity on model performance, assessed by comparing Dice coefficients and AUC values across centers and pathological subtypes. All secondary outcomes will be evaluated at the completion of the model training phase, approximately 18 months after study initiation, after the final federated aggregation and ensemble model construction, using the independent multi-center test set, with center-specific and subtype-specific analyses performed thereafter.
Assessed at the completion of the model training phase, approximately 18 months after study initiation, following final aggregation and ensemble construction, using the independent multi-center test set, with center-specific and subtype-specific analyses

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Sponsor

The organization or person who initiates the study and who has authority and control over the study.
First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University

Investigators

Investigators

A researcher involved in a clinical study. Related terms include site principal investigator, site sub-investigator, study chair, study director, and study principal investigator.
  • Study Director: Min Qin, MD, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

Study Start

The actual date on which the first participant was enrolled in a clinical study. The "anticipated" study start date is the date that the researchers think will be the study start date.
October 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

Primary Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention to collect final data for the primary outcome measure. Whether the clinical study ended according to the protocol or was terminated does not affect this date. For clinical studies with more than one primary outcome measure with different completion dates, this term refers to the date on which data collection is completed for all the primary outcome measures. The "anticipated" primary completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the primary completion date for the study.
August 30, 2028

Study Completion (Estimated)

Study Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention/treatment to collect final data for the primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, and adverse events (that is, the last participant's last visit). The "anticipated" study completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the study completion date.
August 30, 2028

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

First Submitted

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submitted a study record to ClinicalTrials.gov. There is typically a delay of a few days between the first submitted date and the record's availability on ClinicalTrials.gov (the first posted date).
August 19, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submits a study record that is consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. The sponsor or investigator may need to revise and submit a study record one or more times before NLM's QC review criteria are met. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
September 21, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

First Posted

The date on which the study record was first available on ClinicalTrials.gov after National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review has concluded. There is typically a delay of a few days between the date the study sponsor or investigator submitted the study record and the first posted date.
September 25, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

Last Update Posted

The most recent date on which changes to a study record were made available on ClinicalTrials.gov. There may be a delay between when the changes were submitted to ClinicalTrials.gov by the study's sponsor or investigator (the last update submitted date) and the last update posted date.
October 30, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator submitted changes to a study record that are consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
October 28, 2026

Last Verified

Last Verified

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator confirmed the information about a clinical study on ClinicalTrials.gov as accurate and current. If a study with a recruitment status of recruiting; not yet recruiting; or active, not recruiting has not been confirmed within the past 2 years, the study's recruitment status is shown as unknown.
October 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

Other Study ID Numbers

Identifiers or ID numbers other than the NCT number that are assigned to a clinical study by the study's sponsor, funders, or others. These numbers may include unique identifiers from other trial registries and National Institutes of Health grant numbers.
  • 2026-S0835

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

Individual Participant Data (IPD) will not be shared in this study. The primary reasons are threefold: (1) strict legal restrictions under China's Data Security Law and Personal Information Protection Law prohibit cross-institutional transfer of raw medical data without explicit consent; (2) as a retrospective study spanning several years, obtaining renewed consent from all participants is practically infeasible; and (3) the core federated learning framework inherently eliminates the need for IPD sharing-only encrypted model parameters are transmitted, while raw CT images and clinical data remain securely stored at each participating center. This design fully protects patient privacy, complies with all regulatory requirements, and ensures the study's collaborative objectives are achieved without ever exposing individual-level data.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Cookie Settings

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. For more details carefully read our Privacy and Cookies Policy. ...>>>You can change your preferences or withdraw your consent at any time by deleting the cookies from your website or computer as described in the policy. Please accept it and choose your preferences by ticking the corresponding boxes in the "Manage Settings" section below. Please carefully read our Terms of Service before you proceed with using any part of this website.
«Manage Settings