Secure Medical Image Retrieval Based on Multi-Attention Mechanism and Triplet Deep Hashing

Medical institutions frequently utilize cloud servers for storing digital medical imaging data, aiming to lower both storage expenses and computational expenses. Nevertheless, the reliability of cloud servers as third-party providers is not always guaranteed. To safeguard against the exposure and misuse of personal privacy information, and achieve secure and efficient retrieval, a secure medical image retrieval based on a multi-attention mechanism and triplet deep hashing is proposed in this paper (abbreviated as MATDH). Specifically, this method first utilizes the contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization method applicable to color images to enhance chest X-ray images. Next, a designed multi-attention mechanism focuses on important local features during the feature extraction stage. Moreover, a triplet loss function is utilized to learn discriminative hash codes to construct a compact and efficient triplet deep hashing. Finally, upsampling is used to restore the original resolution of the images during retrieval, thereby enabling more accurate matching. To ensure the security of medical image data, a lightweight image encryption method based on frequency domain encryption is designed to encrypt the chest X-ray images. The findings of the experiment indicate that, in comparison to various advanced image retrieval techniques, the suggested approach improves the precision of feature extraction and retrieval using the COVIDx dataset. Additionally, it offers enhanced protection for the confidentiality of medical images stored in cloud settings and demonstrates strong practicality.