Automatic Breast Tumor Screening of Mammographic Images with Optimal Convolutional Neural Network

Mammography is a first-line imaging examination approach used for early breast tumor screening. Computational techniques based on deep-learning methods, such as convolutional neural network (CNN), are routinely used as classifiers for rapid automatic breast tumor screening in mammography examination. Classifying multiple feature maps on two-dimensional (2D) digital images, a multilayer CNN has multiple convolutional-pooling layers and fully connected networks, which can increase the screening accuracy and reduce the error rate. However, this multilayer architecture presents some limitations, such as high computational complexity, large-scale training dataset requirements, and poor suitability for real-time clinical applications. Hence, this study designs an optimal multilayer architecture for a CNN-based classifier for automatic breast tumor screening, consisting of three convolutional layers, two pooling layers, a flattening layer, and a classification layer. In the first convolutional layer, the proposed classifier performs the fractional-order convolutional process to enhance the image and remove unwanted noise for obtaining the desired object’s edges; in the second and third convolutional-pooling layers, two kernel convolutional and pooling operations are used to ensure the continuous enhancement and sharpening of the feature patterns for further extracting of the desired features at different scales and different levels. Moreover, there is a reduction of the dimensions of the feature patterns. In the classification layer, a multilayer network with an adaptive moment estimation algorithm is used to refine a classifier’s network parameters for mammography classification by separating tumor-free feature patterns from tumor feature patterns. Images can be selected from a curated breast imaging subset of a digital database for screening mammography (CBIS-DDSM), and K-fold cross-validations are performed. The experimental results indicate promising performance for automatic breast tumor screening in terms of recall (%), precision (%), accuracy (%), F1 score, and Youden’s index.