Abstract
Quantum Machine Learning is a novel field of research aimed at devising machine learning approaches exploiting principles of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, entanglement and interference. In this context, we present a scalable hybrid Quantum Diffusion Model, and evaluate its use for medical image analysis. Specifically, our method is based on a Discrete-Time Quantum Walk algorithm, executed on a real quantum device, to model the forward dynamics of the diffusion model. For the backward step of the diffusion model, we devise and evaluate a classical learning model, which is used to reversely denoise the data. In contrast with other existing attempts at applying quantum machine learning for image analysis tasks, severely limited by the size of existing quantum devices, our method allows to process real-world large size medical data. In particular, we present results on grayscale and RGB images, as well as 3D volumes of moderate sizes. We benchmark our results by reproducing an alternative classical counterpart model, based on diffusion models on discrete state spaces. By doing so, we compare the generation capabilities of both models in terms of three distinct state-of-the-art metrics in the field of image generation, showing the competitive, promising results of our approach.
Keywords
Publication details
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- Open access
- Green open access
Cite this article
APA 7
Venturelli, F. A., Martina, S., Parigi, M., Caruso, F., Cervera-Lierta, A., & Ballester, M. A. G. (2026). Quantum Diffusion Models for Medical Image Analysis. https://omanscience.com/en/articles/quantum-diffusion-models-for-medical-image-analysis
MLA 9
Venturelli, Francesco Aldo, et al. "Quantum Diffusion Models for Medical Image Analysis." https://omanscience.com/en/articles/quantum-diffusion-models-for-medical-image-analysis.
Chicago (author–date)
Venturelli, Francesco Aldo, Stefano Martina, Marco Parigi, Filippo Caruso, Alba Cervera-Lierta, and Miguel A. González Ballester. 2026. "Quantum Diffusion Models for Medical Image Analysis." https://omanscience.com/en/articles/quantum-diffusion-models-for-medical-image-analysis.
Harvard
Venturelli, F. A., Martina, S., Parigi, M., Caruso, F., Cervera-Lierta, A. and Ballester, M. A. G. (2026) 'Quantum Diffusion Models for Medical Image Analysis', Available at: https://omanscience.com/en/articles/quantum-diffusion-models-for-medical-image-analysis.
Vancouver
Venturelli FA, Martina S, Parigi M, Caruso F, Cervera-Lierta A, Ballester MAG. Quantum Diffusion Models for Medical Image Analysis. https://omanscience.com/en/articles/quantum-diffusion-models-for-medical-image-analysis
IEEE
F. A. Venturelli, S. Martina, M. Parigi, F. Caruso, A. Cervera-Lierta, and M. A. G. Ballester, "Quantum Diffusion Models for Medical Image Analysis," https://omanscience.com/en/articles/quantum-diffusion-models-for-medical-image-analysis.