Breast Cancer Histopathological Image Classification Research Articles

Adaptive Threshold Learning in Frequency Domain for Classification of Breast Cancer Histopathological Images

Breast cancer has become the most common cancer in the world, and biopsy is the most reliable and widely used technique for detecting breast cancer. However, observation of histopathological images is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Currently, CNN has become the mainstream method for breast cancer histopathological image classification research. However, some studies have found that the optical microscope-generated histopathological images have noise, and the output of a well-trained convolutional neural network in image classification tasks can change drastically due to small variations in the input. Therefore, the quality of the image significantly affects the accuracy of the classification. Wavelet transform is a commonly used denoising method, but the selection of the threshold is a difficult problem, and traditional methods are difficult to find the appropriate threshold quickly and accurately. This paper proposes an adaptive threshold selection method that combines threshold selection steps with deep learning methods by using the threshold as a parameter in the CNN model to train. In this way, we associate the threshold with the classification result of the model and find the appropriate value for that image and task by back-propagation in training. The method was experimented on publicly available datasets BreaKHis and BACH. The results in BreaKHis (40x: 94.37%, 100x: 93.85%, 200x: 91.63%, 400x: 93.31%), and BACH (91.25%) demonstrate that our adaptive threshold selection method can improve classification accuracy and is significantly superior to traditional threshold selection methods.

Multi-Branch Spectral Channel Attention Network for Breast Cancer Histopathology Image Classification

Deep-learning-based breast cancer image diagnosis is currently a prominent and growingly popular area of research. Existing convolutional-neural-network-related methods mainly capture breast cancer image features based on spatial domain characteristics for classification. However, according to digital signal processing theory, texture images usually contain repeated patterns and structures, which appear as intense energy at specific frequencies in the frequency domain. Motivated by this, we make an attempt to explore a breast cancer histopathology classification application in the frequency domain and further propose a novel multi-branch spectral channel attention network, i.e., the MbsCANet. It expands the interaction of frequency domain attention mechanisms from a multi-branch perspective via combining the lowest frequency features with selected high frequency information from two-dimensional discrete cosine transform, thus preventing the loss of phase information and gaining richer context information for classification. We thoroughly evaluate and analyze the MbsCANet on the publicly accessible BreakHis breast cancer histopathology dataset. It respectively achieves the optimal image-level and patient-level classification results of 99.01% and 98.87%, averagely outperforming the spatial-domain-dominated models by a large margin, and visualization results also demonstrate the effectiveness of the MbsCANet for this medical image application.

Ensemble of Deep Features for Breast Cancer Histopathological Image Classification

Abstract Analysis of histopathological images (HIs) is crucial for detecting breast cancer (BR). However, because they vary, it is still very difficult to extract well-designed elements. Deep learning (DL) is a recent development that is used to extract high-level features. However, DL techniques continue to confront several difficult problems, such as the need for sufficient training data for DL models, which reduces the classification findings. In this study, an ensemble deep transfer convolutional neural network is presented to address this problem. The pre-trained models (ResNet50 and MobileNet) are employed to extract high-level features by freezing the front layer parameters while fine-tuning the last layers. In the proposed ensemble framework, KNN, SVM, logistic regression and neural networks are used as base classifiers. The majority vote and product approaches are used to integrate the predictions of each separate classifier. In the benchmark BreaKHis dataset, the suggested ensemble model is compared to some current approaches. It demonstrates that while the ensemble model obtains a considerable accuracy of 97.72% for the multiclass classification test, it achieves an accuracy of 99.2% for the binary task. The suggested ensemble model’s effectiveness in extracting useful features for BR images is demonstrated by comparison with existing cutting-edge models.

Enhancing breast cancer classification via histopathological image analysis: Leveraging self-supervised contrastive learning and transfer learning

Breast cancer, a significant threat to women's health, demands early detection. Automating histopathological image analysis offers a promising solution to enhance efficiency and accuracy in diagnosis. This study addresses the challenge of breast cancer histopathological image classification by leveraging the ResNet architecture, known for its depth and skip connections. In this work, two distinct approaches were pursued, each driven by unique motivations. The first approach aimed to improve the learning process through self-supervised contrastive learning. It utilizes a small subset of the training data for initial model training and progressively expands the training set by incorporating confidently labeled data from the unlabeled pool, ultimately achieving a reliable model with limited training data. The second approach focused on optimizing the architecture by combining ResNet50 and Inception module to get a lightweight and efficient classifier. The dataset utilized in this work comprises histopathological images categorized into benign and malignant classes at varying magnification levels (40X, 100X, 200X, 400X), all originating from the same source image. The results demonstrate state-of-the-art performance, achieving 98% accuracy for images magnified at 40X and 200X, and 94% for 100X and 400X. Notably, the proposed architecture boasts a substantially reduced parameter count of approximately 3.6 million, contrasting with existing leading architectures, which possess parameter sizes at least twice as large.

Feed-forward networks using logistic regression and support vector machine for whole-slide breast cancer histopathology image classification

The performance of an image classification depends on the efficiency of the feature learning process. This process is a challenging task that traditionally requires prior knowledge from domain experts. Recently, representation learning was introduced to extract features directly from the raw images without any prior knowledge. Deep learning using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) has gained massive attention for performing image classification, as it achieves remarkable accuracy that sometimes exceeds human performance. But this type of network learns features by using a back-propagation approach. This approach requires a huge amount of training data and suffers from the vanishing gradient problem that deteriorates the feature learning. The forward-propagation approach uses predefined filters or filters learned outside the model and applied in a feed-forward manner. This approach is proven to achieve good results with small size labeled datasets. In this work, we investigate the suitability of using two feed-forward methods such as Convolutional Logistic Regression Network (CLR), and Convolutional Support Vector Machine Network for Histopathology Images (CSVM-H). The experiments we have conducted on two small breast cancer datasets (Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) and BreaKHis dataset) demonstrate the advantage of using feed-forward approaches over the traditional back-propagation ones. On those datasets, the proposed models CLR and CSVM-H were faster to train and achieved better classification performance than the traditional back-propagation methods (VggNet-16 and ResNet-50) on the SQUH dataset. Importantly, our proposed approach CLR and CSVM-H efficiently learn representations from small amounts of breast cancer whole-slide images and achieve an AUC of 0.83 and 0.84, respectively, on the SQUH dataset. Moreover, the proposed models reduce memory footprint in the classification of Whole-Slide histopathology images since their training time is significantly reduced compared to the traditional CNN on the SQUH and BreaKHis datasets.

Improved Breast Cancer Classification through Combining Transfer Learning and Attention Mechanism.

Breast cancer, a leading cause of female mortality worldwide, poses a significant health challenge. Recent advancements in deep learning techniques have revolutionized breast cancer pathology by enabling accurate image classification. Various imaging methods, such as mammography, CT, MRI, ultrasound, and biopsies, aid in breast cancer detection. Computer-assisted pathological image classification is of paramount importance for breast cancer diagnosis. This study introduces a novel approach to breast cancer histopathological image classification. It leverages modified pre-trained CNN models and attention mechanisms to enhance model interpretability and robustness, emphasizing localized features and enabling accurate discrimination of complex cases. Our method involves transfer learning with deep CNN models-Xception, VGG16, ResNet50, MobileNet, and DenseNet121-augmented with the convolutional block attention module (CBAM). The pre-trained models are finetuned, and the two CBAM models are incorporated at the end of the pre-trained models. The models are compared to state-of-the-art breast cancer diagnosis approaches and tested for accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score. The confusion matrices are used to evaluate and visualize the results of the compared models. They help in assessing the models' performance. The test accuracy rates for the attention mechanism (AM) using the Xception model on the "BreakHis" breast cancer dataset are encouraging at 99.2% and 99.5%. The test accuracy for DenseNet121 with AMs is 99.6%. The proposed approaches also performed better than previous approaches examined in the related studies.

Meta-adaptive-weighting-based bilateral multi-dimensional refined space feature attention network for imbalanced breast cancer histopathological image classification

Breast cancer histopathological image automatic classification can reduce pathologists workload and provide accurate diagnosis. However, one challenge is that empirical datasets are usually imbalanced, resulting in poorer classification quality compared with conventional methods based on balanced datasets. The recently proposed bilateral branch network (BBN) tackles this problem through considering both representation and classifier learning to improve classification performance. We firstly apply bilateral sampling strategy to imbalanced breast cancer histopathological image classification and propose a meta-adaptive-weighting-based bilateral multi-dimensional refined space feature attention network (MAW-BMRSFAN). The model is composed of BMRSFAN and MAWN. Specifically, the refined space feature attention module (RSFAM) is based on convolutional long short-term memories (ConvLSTMs). It is designed to extract refined spatial features of different dimensions for image classification and is inserted into different layers of classification model. Meanwhile, the MAWN is proposed to model the mapping from a balanced meta-dataset to imbalanced dataset. It finds suitable weighting parameter for BMRSFAN more flexibly through adaptively learning from a small amount of balanced dataset directly. The experiments show that MAW-BMRSFAN performs better than previous methods. The recognition accuracy of MAW-BMRSFAN under four different magnifications still is higher than 80% even when unbalance factor is 16, indicating that MAW-BMRSFAN can make ideal performance under extreme imbalanced conditions.

Fourier ptychographic and deep learning using breast cancer histopathological image classification.

Automated, as well as accurate classification with breast cancer histological images, was crucial for medical applications because of detecting malignant tumors via histopathological images. In this work create a Fourier ptychographic (FP) and deep learning using breast cancer histopathological image classification. Here the FP method used in the process begins with such a random guess that builds a high-resolution complex hologram, subsequently uses iterative retrieval using FP constraints to stitch around each other low-resolution multi-view means of production owned from either the hologram's high-resolution hologram's elemental images captured via integral imaging. Next, the feature extraction process includes entropy, geometrical features, and textural features. The entropy-based normalization is used to optimize the features. Finally, it attains the classification process of the proposed ENDNN classifies the breast cancer images into normal or abnormal. The experimental outcomes demonstrate that our presented technique overtakes the traditional techniques.

Binary classification of multi-magnification histopathological breast cancer images using late fusion and transfer learning

PurposeHistopathology biopsy imaging is currently the gold standard for the diagnosis of breast cancer in clinical practice. Pathologists examine the images at various magnifications to identify the type of tumor because if only one magnification is taken into account, the decision may not be accurate. This study explores the performance of transfer learning and late fusion to construct multi-scale ensembles that fuse different magnification-specific deep learning models for the binary classification of breast tumor slides.Design/methodology/approachThree pretrained deep learning techniques (DenseNet 201, MobileNet v2 and Inception v3) were used to classify breast tumor images over the four magnification factors of the Breast Cancer Histopathological Image Classification dataset (40×, 100×, 200× and 400×). To fuse the predictions of the models trained on different magnification factors, different aggregators were used, including weighted voting and seven meta-classifiers trained on slide predictions using class labels and the probabilities assigned to each class. The best cluster of the outperforming models was chosen using the Scott–Knott statistical test, and the top models were ranked using the Borda count voting system.FindingsThis study recommends the use of transfer learning and late fusion for histopathological breast cancer image classification by constructing multi-magnification ensembles because they perform better than models trained on each magnification separately.Originality/valueThe best multi-scale ensembles outperformed state-of-the-art integrated models and achieved an accuracy mean value of 98.82 per cent, precision of 98.46 per cent, recall of 100 per cent and F1-score of 99.20 per cent.

SECS: An effective CNN joint construction strategy for breast cancer histopathological image classification

Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers in women. Reliable pathology identification can help histopathologists make accurate diagnosis of breast cancer but require specialized histopathological knowledge and a significant amount of manpower and medical resources. In this study, we fuse the coordinated attention mechanism to enhance the image texture analysis capability of the DenseNet, and build the CA-BreastNet model to classify microscopic histopathological images of specific types of breast cancers in the BreakHis dataset. More crucially, convolutional decision trees based on the specialized enhanced classifying strategy(SECS) are built to increase the overall accuracy of the network by reducing the model's accuracy restriction imposed by dataset structures. The related experimental results show that our network has strong performance and the SECS offers researchers reliable and effective performance enhancement guidelines. The accuracy of the convolutional decision trees reaches 99.75% for binary classification and 95.69% for eight-class classification, which means our model and strategy will be useful in the field of automatic diagnosis of breast cancer.

Multi-Class Breast Cancer Histopathological Image Classification Using Multi-Scale Pooled Image Feature Representation (MPIFR) and One-Versus-One Support Vector Machines

Breast cancer (BC) is currently the most common form of cancer diagnosed worldwide with an incidence estimated at 2.26 million in 2020. Additionally, BC is the leading cause of cancer death. Many subtypes of breast cancer exist with distinct biological features and which respond differently to various treatment modalities and have different clinical outcomes. To ensure that sufferers receive lifesaving patients-tailored treatment early, it is crucial to accurately distinguish dangerous malignant (ductal carcinoma, lobular carcinoma, mucinous carcinoma, and papillary carcinoma) subtypes of tumors from adenosis, fibroadenoma, phyllodes tumor, and tubular adenoma benign harmless subtypes. An excellent automated method for detecting malignant subtypes of tumors is desirable since doctors do not identify 10% to 30% of breast cancers during regular examinations. While several computerized methods for breast cancer classification have been proposed, deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) have demonstrated superior performance. In this work, we proposed an ensemble of four variants of DCNNs combined with the support vector machines classifier to classify breast cancer histopathological images into eight subtypes classes: four benign and four malignant. The proposed method utilizes the power of DCNNs to extract highly predictive multi-scale pooled image feature representation (MPIFR) from four resolutions (40×, 100×, 200×, and 400×) of BC images that are then classified using SVM. Eight pre-trained DCNN architectures (Inceptionv3, InceptionResNetv2, ResNet18, ResNet50, DenseNet201, EfficientNetb0, shuffleNet, and SqueezeNet) were individually trained and an ensemble of the four best-performing models (ResNet50, ResNet18, DenseNet201, and EfficientNetb0) was utilized for feature extraction. One-versus-one SVM classification was then utilized to model an 8-class breast cancer image classifier. Our work is novel because while some prior work has utilized CNNs for 2- and 4-class breast cancer classification, only one other prior work proposed a solution for 8-class BC histopathological image classification. A 6B-Net deep CNN model was utilized, achieving an accuracy of 90% for 8-class BC classification. In rigorous evaluation, the proposed MPIFR method achieved an average accuracy of 97.77%, with 97.48% sensitivity, and 98.45% precision on the BreakHis histopathological BC image dataset, outperforming the prior state-of-the-art for histopathological breast cancer multi-class classification and a comprehensive set of DCNN baseline models.

Medical Image Classification Based on Semi-Supervised Generative Adversarial Network and Pseudo-Labelling

Deep learning has substantially improved the state-of-the-art in object detection and image classification. Deep learning usually requires large-scale labelled datasets to train the models; however, due to the restrictions in medical data sharing and accessibility and the expensive labelling cost, the application of deep learning in medical image classification has been dramatically hindered. In this study, we propose a novel method that leverages semi-supervised adversarial learning and pseudo-labelling to incorporate the unlabelled images in model learning. We validate the proposed method on two public databases, including ChestX-ray14 for lung disease classification and BreakHis for breast cancer histopathological image diagnosis. The results show that our method achieved highly effective performance with an accuracy of 93.15% while using only 30% of the labelled samples, which is comparable to the state-of-the-art accuracy for chest X-ray classification; it also outperformed the current methods in multi-class breast cancer histopathological image classification with a high accuracy of 96.87%.

A Federated Learning Framework for Breast Cancer Histopathological Image Classification

Quantities and diversities of datasets are vital to model training in a variety of medical image diagnosis applications. However, there are the following problems in real scenes: the required data may not be available in a single institution due to the number of patients or the type of pathology, and it is often not feasible to share patient data due to medical data privacy regulations. This means keeping private data safe is required and has become an obstacle in fusing data from multi-party to train a medical model. To solve the problems, we propose a federated learning framework, which allows knowledge fusion achieved by sharing the model parameters of each client through federated training rather than sharing data. Based on breast cancer histopathological dataset (BreakHis), our federated learning experiments achieve the expected results which are similar to the performances of the centralized learning and verify the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed framework.

MF-OMKT: Model fusion based on online mutual knowledge transfer for breast cancer histopathological image classification

Pathological diagnosis is considered as the benchmark for the detection of breast cancer. With the increasing number of patients, computer-aided histopathological image classification can assist pathologists in improving breast cancer diagnosis accuracy and working efficiency. However, a single model is insufficient for effective diagnosis, and this also does not accord with the principle of centralized decision-making. Starting from the real pathological diagnosis scenario, we propose a novel model fusion framework based on online mutual knowledge transfer (MF-OMKT) for breast cancer histopathological image classification. The OMKT part based on deep mutual learning (DML) imitates the mutual communication and learning between multiple experienced pathologists, which can break the isolation of single models and provides sufficient complementarity among heterogeneous networks for MF. The MF part based on adaptive feature fusion uses the complementarity to train a powerful fusion classifier. MF imitates the centralized decision-making process of these pathologists. We used the MF-OMKT model to classify breast cancer histopathological images (BreakHis dataset) into benign and malignant as well as eight subtypes. The accuracy of our model reaches the range of [99.27 %, 99.84 %] for binary classification. And that for multi-class classification reaches the range of [96.14 %, 97.53 %]. Additionally, MF-OMKT is applied to the classification of skin cancer images (ISIC 2018 dataset) and achieves an accuracy of 94.90 %. MF-OMKT is an effective and versatile framework for medical image classification.

Classification of Multiclass Histopathological Breast Images Using Residual Deep Learning.

Pathologists need a lot of clinical experience and time to do the histopathological investigation. AI may play a significant role in supporting pathologists and resulting in more accurate and efficient histopathological diagnoses. Breast cancer is one of the most diagnosed cancers in women worldwide. Breast cancer may be detected and diagnosed using imaging methods such as histopathological images. Since various tissues make up the breast, there is a wide range of textural intensity, making abnormality detection difficult. As a result, there is an urgent need to improve computer-assisted systems (CAD) that can serve as a second opinion for radiologists when they use medical images. A self-training learning method employing deep learning neural network with residual learning is proposed to overcome the issue of needing a large number of labeled images to train deep learning models in breast cancer histopathology image classification. The suggested model is built from scratch and trained.

Classification of Breast Tumors Based on Histopathology Images Using Deep Features and Ensemble of Gradient Boosting Methods

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide. Early-stage diagnosis of this disease can significantly improve the efficiency of treatment. Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) Systems are adopted widely in this regard due to their reliability, accuracy and affordability. There are different imaging techniques for a breast cancer diagnosis; one of the most accurate ones is histopathology which is used in this paper. Deep feature transfer learning is used as the main idea of the proposed CAD system’s feature extractor. As such, the present paper works on sixteen different pre-trained networks with a focus on their classification phase, something that has not been studied enough. The Inception-ResNet-v2, which has both residual and inception networks profits together, has shown the best feature extraction capability in the case of breast cancer histopathology images among all tested Convolutional neural networks (CNNs). In the classification phase, the ensemble of Categorical Boosting (CatBoost), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) and Light Gradient boosting Machine (LightGBM) has given the best average accuracy. The Breast Cancer Histopathological Image Classification (BreakHis) dataset helps evaluating the proposed method, i.e., IRv2-CXL, with the experimental results indicating that IRv2-CXL outperforms other state-of-the-art methods.

Breast cancer histopathology image classification based on dual-stream high-order network

The early diagnosis of breast cancer using pathological images is of the vital importance. Recently, breast cancer histopathology image classification methods based on convolution neural network (CNN) are constantly innovating with the development of computer-aided diagnosis technology. To obtain pathological tissue features with more discriminant presentation capability for classification, this work proposes a novel dual-stream high-order breast cancer pathological image classification network named DsHoNet. To be precise, a shallow network composed of six convolution layers is built as the backbone of the dual-stream network firstly, in which one stream utilizes batch normalization (BN) layer to retain the original feature information with clearer feature distribution, while another stream introduces the Ghost module to extract richer supplementary features by utilizing a series of linear transformations. Then, outputs of the two streams are further enhanced via a covariance pooling layer to achieve more powerful deep high-order statistic features for classification. Extensive evaluation experiments carried out on the public BreakHis dataset demonstrate that the optimal recognition rates of DsHoNet are 99.01% and 99.25% respectively at the image-level and patient-level, performing favorably against its counterparts.

Breast Cancer Detection on Histopathological Images Using a Composite Dilated Backbone Network.

Breast cancer is a lethal illness that has a high mortality rate. In treatment, the accuracy of diagnosis is crucial. Machine learning and deep learning may be beneficial to doctors. The proposed backbone network is critical for the present performance of CNN-based detectors. Integrating dilated convolution, ResNet, and Alexnet increases detection performance. The composite dilated backbone network (CDBN) is an innovative method for integrating many identical backbones into a single robust backbone. Hence, CDBN uses the lead backbone feature maps to identify objects. It feeds high-level output features from previous backbones into the next backbone in a stepwise way. We show that most contemporary detectors can easily include CDBN to improve performance achieved mAP improvements ranging from 1.5 to 3.0 percent on the breast cancer histopathological image classification (BreakHis) dataset. Experiments have also shown that instance segmentation may be improved. In the BreakHis dataset, CDBN enhances the baseline detector cascade mask R-CNN (mAP = 53.3). The proposed CDBN detector does not need pretraining. It creates high-level traits by combining low-level elements. This network is made up of several identical backbones that are linked together. The composite dilated backbone considers the linked backbones CDBN.

Dilated residual grooming kernel model for breast cancer detection

• Solves the overfitting issue in the Convolution Neural Networks . • The proposed fully connected dilation unit enhances small and low-level features. • Accurate cancerous cell Detection using dilated model. • The proposed model solves the issue of desegregation. • Efficiently removal of redundant and similar features through proposed model. Breast cancer is the most significant cause of mortality among women. When detected and treated early, it saves lives. Breast cancer detection is becoming more accessible and accurate thanks to machine learning and deep learning models. This research aims to enhance medical science and technology by employing a deep learning model to detect small cancer cells with pinpoint accuracy. The proposed model uses datasets from the Breast Cancer Histopathological Image Classification (BreakHis) and Breast Cancer Histopathological Annotation and Diagnosis (BreCaHAD). Next, the image processing procedure employs strain normalization to rectify color divergence caused by using different slide scanners, staining processes, and biopsy materials. The data augmentation with nineteen parameters such as scaling, rotation, flip, resize, and gamma value tackles the overfitting problems. The augmented images are then processed using the dilated residual (DR) model; the DR model combines the proposed dilated spatial convolution unit, fully connected dilation unit, and dilated channel convolution. The first unit is the dilated spatial convolution, which handles all channels equally and amplifies the valuable aspects. The second unit is a fully connected dilation unit; it displays low-level properties such as edges, contours, and color. The third unit is dilated channel convolution, which detects tiny objects and thin boundaries without adding complexity. The proposed dilated residual grooming kernel (DRGK) model is a 14-layer deep learning model that stretches the receptive field while retaining feature information, using the proposed DR unit and ghost model, as well as convolution, pooling, downsampling, and dilated convolution. Dilated convolutions are extensively used in the proposed model to extract features. Accuracy, the area under the curve, average precision score, precision, sensitivity, and f1 score all improve with a learning rate of 0.001. With 96.33% and 93.35% marks, the proposed approach surpasses several state-of-the-art methods.

Semi‐supervised breast histopathological image classification with self‐training based on non‐linear distance metric

Histopathological analysis requires a lot of clinical experience and time for pathologists. Artificial intelligence (AI) may have an important role in assisting pathologists and leading to more efficient and effective histopathological diagnoses. To address the challenge of requiring a large number of labelled images to train deep learning models in breast cancer histopathological image classification, a self-training semi-supervised learning method consisting three components is proposed: Firstly, a pre-trained ResNet-18 was used to extract features and generate pseudo-labels for unlabelled data; secondly, a relational weight network based on the squeeze-and-excitation network (SENet) was trained to calculate the non-linear distance metrices between labelled and unlabelled samples, in order to improve the accuracy of pseudo-labelling; lastly, a consistency loss—maximum mean difference (MMD)—was added into the model to minimize the divergence between distributions of unlabelled and labelled samples. Extensive experiments were conducted on the open access BreakHis dataset. The proposed method outperformed the state-of-the-art semi-supervised methods at all tested annotated percentages (10–70%), and also achieved comparable performance with supervised methods at higher annotated percentages (50%, 70%).