TARGET DETECTION IN LATENT SPACE

A method for processing medical image data comprises: inputting medical image data to a variational autoencoder configured to reduce a dimensionality of the medical image data to a latent space having one or more latent variables with latent variable values, such that the latent variable values corresponding to an image with no tissue of a target tissue type fit within one or more clusters; determining a probability that the latent variable values corresponding to the medical image data fit within the one or more clusters based on the latent variable values; and determining that a tissue of the target tissue type is present in response to a determination that the medical image data have less than a threshold probability of fitting within any of the one or more clusters based on the latent variable values.