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A STUDY ON EARLY PREVENTION AND DETECTION OF BREAST CANCER

USING THREE-MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES

Article · April 2018

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 Volume 9, Special Issue No. 2, April 2018 ISBN: 978-93-5311-643-9
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science
(ISSN: 0976-5697)
CONFERENCE PAPER
Available Online at www.ijarcs.info
A STUDY ON EARLY PREVENTION AND DETECTION OF BREAST CANCER
USING THREE-MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES
Nafees Akhter Farooqui Ritika
Deptt. of Computer Applications Deptt. of Computer Applications
DIT University, DIT University,
Dehradun, India Dehradun, India
nafees.farooqui@dituniversity.edu.in hod.mca@dituniversity.edu.in

Abstract: The size of the Medical data repositories is increasing rapidly. Thus, we cannot easily analyze these data for finding the valuable and
hidden knowledge. There are several machine learning techniques that are used for medical analysis. Breast cancer is the most common cancer
particularly diagnosed in women. It is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Only early detection can prevent the breast cancer’s
mortality. Breast cancer is a cancer that forms in the cells of the breasts. Now a days Breast cancer had become a very major disease not only in
India but also in other countries. The main objective of this paper is to early diagnosis of the breast cancer patients. For early prevention and
detection of the breast cancer patients, three machine learning techniques (i.e. Decision tree, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest) are used,
that also eliminates the waiting time and reducing the human and technical errors in diagnosing the breast cancer. Earlier detection of Breast
Cancer gives more lives and falling the death rate. Its cure rate and expectation depend on the early identification and finding of the infections.
The selection of suitable machine learning technique is a challenge for the diagnosis of breast cancer. Thus, we have created a model for a breast
cancer prediction system to analyze risk levels which help in prognosis. This paper becomes very helpful to doctor for diagnosis breast cancer
and helpful to patients for early treatment.

Keywords: Decision tree, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, Prognosis, Prediction System, Risk Levels

I. INTRODUCTION
According to World Health Organization stated that, 8.8
million deaths globally each year are caused by cancer.
Cancer represents 13% of all global deaths. American
Cancer Society stated that, Breast cancer death rates
declined 39% from 1989 to 2015 among women [1]. The
progress is attributed to improvements in early detection and
prevention. Due to this reason research of breast cancer lead
to increase the survival rate of people. This literature paper
explains the breast cancer identification in various
characteristics. Growing out of control of cells in the body
starts the cancer, it is any place in the body. When cells in
the breast begin to grow out of control, then breast cancer
starts. The Symptoms of breast cancer include a lump in the
breast, bloody discharge from the nipple and changes in the
shape or texture of the nipple or breast. Breast cancer occurs
almost entirely in women, but men can get breast cancer,
too. Basically, the breast cancer is two types that are non-
invasive and invasive. Non-invasive breast cancer starts in
the milk vessel and does not spread in the other organs even
if it grows. But invasive breast cancer is very antagonistic
and spreads to other organs and destroys them. So that, it is
necessary to detect the affected cell before the spreading to
other nearby organs. Early detection will prevent the death
rate of breast cancerous patients. We proposed the new
adaptive technique that eliminates the waiting time and
reducing the human efforts and technical errors in
diagnosing the breast cancer. The breast cancer's symptoms
remain unclear and there is no main reason has been
appeared [2]. Using Data Mining techniques reduces the
false positive and false negative decisions that will give the
advantage for the early prediction of breast cancer [3, 4].
There are different data analysis tools use for the
prediction of the pattern from large data sets. These tools
can include different machine learning methods in early
detection of cancer. Classification learning is way of
learning to categorize unseen examples into predefine
classes based on the set of training examples that is used for
the prediction of class instance. While association learning
is not predicting only the classes but also the attribute of the
classes. Clustering is the process of separating datasets into
subgroup according to their unique features. This type of
learning task identified the classes from the knowledgebase.
In this study, to classify the data using decision tree
algorithm. In some cases, there are random forest algorithm
are used to classify the data, that built a large amount of
decision trees out of sub-datasets from original training set
by using bagging. Which improves the classification and
regression models according to stability and accuracy. Due
to the various challenges in the classification and regression
models. Support Vector Machines are used for the
classification problems, which is supervised machine
learning algorithm. In this paper, we proposed a predictive
model to detect and prevent a breast cancer at early stage
using three machine learning techniques. Also estimate the
validation of the models, and measures the accuracy,
sensitivity, and specificity.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
After reviewing the different literature showed that there
have been several studies on the early detection and
prevention of breast cancer using data mining techniques
such as decision tree [5, 6]. Sahar A. Mokhtar et al [7] have
studied decision tree, artificial neural network and support

Conference Paper: II International Conference on “Advancement in Computer Engineering and Information Technology” 
Organized by: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Integral University, Lucknow, U.P. India            37 
 Nafees Akhter Farooqui et al, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 9 (Special Issue II), April 2018,37-42

vector machine classification models for the prediction of
the severity of breast cancer. The performances of the three
models have been evaluated using the statistical measures
(accuracy, sensitivity, specificity) and found that Support
vector machine model performance is better than the other
two models on the prediction of the severity of breast
cancer. In the study of Pendharker patterns in breast cancer,
data mining tool is valuable in identifying patterns in breast
cancer cases that can be used for diagnosis, prognosis, and
treatment purposes [8]. Rajashree Dash et al [9] was
proposed a hybridized K-means clustering algorithm to
improve the efficiency of the original K-means clustering by
applying the PCA on original data sets. It is a new approach
to identifying cluster centers and the steps of assigning data
points to appropriate clusters. There was a given data set
that partitioned into k clusters. After the experimental result,
it shows that the proposed algorithm provides better
efficiency and accuracy comparison to the original k-means
algorithm with reduced time. Zakaria Suliman zubi et al [10]
used different data mining techniques such as neural
networks for detection and classification of lung cancers.
In the Modern medical sciences, there should be
developed new blood test technique that can easily detect
the eight types of common cancers in a single test which is
known as SEEK cancer. In this type of blood test detects
tiny amounts of DNA and proteins released into the
bloodstream from cancer cells. This type of blood test
technique indicates the presence of ovarian, liver, stomach,
pancreatic, oesophageal, bowel, lung or breast cancers. This
blood test is known as a liquid biopsy, which is different
from a standard biopsy, where a needle is put into a solid
tumor to confirm a cancer diagnosis. SEEK Cancer is also
far less invasive. It will be helpful for the early diagnosis of
cancer and more chance of cure with the modern medical
medicines and surgery
development of drugs and the treatment of breast cancer
[13]. In this paper, we study three machine learning
techniques as the research methods for the detection of
breast cancer. The purpose of this research is to develop
prediction models that detect and prevent at early stage of
the breast cancer.
B. Medical Prognosis Analysis
Medical prognosis is a scientific field to evaluating the
recurrence of disease and to predict survival of patient or
group of patients [14]. Patients health estimation is
performed by the use medical prognosis analysis. These
estimates can help to design treatment as per the expected
outcomes. The field of knowledge discovery and data
mining techniques advances the medical sciences and their
existence. These methods are more powerful as compared to
traditional statistical methods [14]. In Recent improvements
in early detection and prevention increases the expectations
of survival of breast cancer patient after the diagnosis of the
cancer [15].
IV. PROPOSED MODEL
The proposed model is used for the preprocessing of data. In
this model build the Knowledge base that stored the
collected data. Mostly the entire data is taken as training set
to build the classification and clustering model and the
remaining is taken for testing purpose. There are different
machine learning techniques are used to build the
classification and clustering model. Then the model is tested
for accuracy, sensitivity and specificity using test data along
with merging it to the knowledge base. Finally, the model is
evaluated using Support Vector Machine. Figure 1 is used
for the detection of breast cancer affected people.

III. BACKGROUND

The death rate of breast cancer reduced in last few years due
to modern screening techniques and treatments [11, 12].
These improvements are the direct result of scientific
research [11]. Scientific research are different types that
provides the knowledge about the disease in different forms
but complementary perspectives [13]. To improved
treatment of the breast cancer by different enhanced
methods and computational methods gives of less-invasive
predictive medicine. Thus, the death rate for this cancer has
decreased in recent years
A. Common Breast Cancer Investigation Methods
The Most Common Investigation methods for breast cancer
are laboratory studies, observational studies and clinical
diagnosis. In the Laboratory studies, hypothesis testing is
performed under the controlled conditions. That gives the
complete results but that are limited by the controlled
environment. In the Observational studies examine the Figure 1. Proposed Model for the Early Prediction of Breast Cancer
characteristics of a population and establish the association
between the variables and its outcome. It does not always V. MATERIALS AND METHODS
establish the association between the cause-and-effect. In
the Clinical diagnosis perform the medical study by After the discussion with medical experts, case studies and
involving humans. That shows that, there are cause-and- Extensive literature reviews shows that there are lot of
effect relationship between the variables and the outcomes. factors influencing cancer. These factors are identified and
Clinical diagnosis has been used at large scale in the taken as attributes for this study. Early stage of prediction of

Conference Paper: II International Conference on “Advancement in Computer Engineering and Information Technology” 
Organized by: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Integral University, Lucknow, U.P. India            38 
 Nafees Akhter Farooqui et al, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 9 (Special Issue II), April 2018,37-42

breast cancer, used the SEER public dataset, consists the missing values [18, 19]. In the Machine learning there
different files of the cancer that helps to identifying the are several learning probabilistic models including
breast cancer at early stage. There are different attributes in Expectation Maximization-based inference algorithms are
each file, and each recorded file relates to a specific considered that are associated with the predictor variables to
incidence of cancer. The data in the file is collected from find the Maximum Likelihood (ML) solutions. That is more
different areas. These areas contain a population which is valuable for the missing or incomplete data. In the EM
representative of the different cultural groups residing in algorithm there are basically two steps E-Step and M-Step.
that area. The SEER is assumed the mortality rate by cancer
in the area by the different factors [17]. The SEER is an VII. MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES
integral part of the Investigation Research Program (IRP) at
the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and is responsible for In this paper, we used DT, RF, and SVM three machine
collecting incidence and investigate data from the learning techniques to early prevention and detection of
participating datasets (along with descriptive information of breast cancer to find which method performs better.
the data itself) for conducting analytical research projects. Decision trees are classification algorithms that are
[16]. Preprocessed the data to remove unsuitable cases. becoming more powerful and popular with the advancement
After using data cleansing and data preparation strategies, of the data mining. A C4.5 algorithm is used that is based on
the final dataset was constructed which consisted of 16 the ID3 algorithm. To improving the prediction accuracy
variables (16 predictor variables and one outcome variable). recursively applied the technique to separate the observation
The above variable is chosen on the basis of the cancer type into the branches that construct a tree. Each tree node is
and their biological characteristics. Table I shows the either a leaf node or decision node. To construct the DT,
predictor variables. The dataset was cleaned by handling they use mathematical algorithms (e.g., information gain,
missing values, noise, identifying and correcting in Gini index, and Chi-squared test) to identify a variable and
consistencies. Some fields, such as Number of positive corresponding threshold for the variable that splits the input
nodes, Race and most of these cases are benign. Missing observation into two or more subgroups [20].
values for variables were substituted using EM method [18]. Random Forest is a bagging algorithm that
Three Machine learning technique DT, RF, SVM are used to successfully applied at highly quantified models [23]. Due
perform classification and early detection of breast cancer. to overfitting problems in the decision tree, Random Forests
There are 162,500 data points: 128,469 positive cases and builds hundreds or may thousands of trees. That are
34,031 negative cases. The dataset is chosen randomly and different from each other, it uses random samples with
divided into ten groups each have with balance class each replacement [24]. On the average, 33% of the rows will be
set, five-fold cross validation issued and repeated five times. left out of each sample [25]. Each tree classifies its
Figure 2 shows the proposed experimental model. observations, and at the end majority votes [26], decisions
are chosen. Random Forest can also be used in the
VI. EXPECTATION MAXIMIZATION (EM) unsupervised mode for assessing proximities among data
points [27]
The EM algorithm is an appropriate tool in statistical Support Vector Machine (SVM) is the idea of a
estimation problems which have incomplete data, or missing hyperplane that divides a dataset into two classes in the best
data that will imposed on the mix estimation also [28, 29]. possible way. SVM has been used in different types of
The EM algorithm has also been used in various motion problems and that have already been successful in pattern
estimation frameworks [30]. The EM algorithm is an recognition in bioinformatics, cancer diagnosis [21]. The
iterative technique for solving missing data in inferential separating Hyperplane can be linear or non-linear. For linear
problems using only standard method. If the data were not classification, SVM computes the linear decision function in
missing, we could use standard statistical methods, the central gap of the two classes by classifying all the
In any incomplete dataset, there are some assumptions, training data points and placing the decision function as far
includes a predictive probability distribution for the missing from the given data points as possible. SVM also uses a
values that should be averaged in the statistical analysis. The non-linear mapping technique to transform the original
EM algorithm is an important technique for the missing data training data into a higher dimension. To minimizing the
prediction it is the relationship between missing data and classification errors, perform the classification for separate
unknown parameters of a model. When the parameters are the classes [22].
known, then it is possible to obtain unbiased predictions for
Table I. Predictor Variables used for detection of breast cancer.
Sr. No. Variable Name Description
1 Age Actual age of patient in years
2 Stage of Cancer Defined by size of cancer tumor and its spread
3 Grade Appearance of tumor and its similarity to more- or less-aggressive tumors
4 Race Ethnicity: White, Black, Chinese, etc.
5 Lymph Node involvement None, (1–3) minimal, (4–9) significant, etc.
6 Marital Status Married, single, divorced, widowed, separated
7 Primary Site Presence of tumor at particular location in body. Topographical classification of cancer
8 Tumor Size 2-5 cm; at 5 cm prognosis worsens
9 Radiation None, beam radiation, radioisotopes, refused, recommended, etc.
10 Histological Type Form and Structure of tumor
11 Site specific surgery code Information on surgery during first course of therapy, whether cancer-directed or not
12 Behavior Code Normal or aggressive tumor behavior is defined using codes

Conference Paper: II International Conference on “Advancement in Computer Engineering and Information Technology” 
Organized by: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Integral University, Lucknow, U.P. India            39 
 Nafees Akhter Farooqui et al, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 9 (Special Issue II), April 2018,37-42

13 Number of positive nodes examined When lymph nodes are involved in cancer, they are called positive
14 Number of nodes examined Total nodes (positive/negative) examined
15 Number of primaries Number of primary tumors (1–6)
16 Clinical extension of tumor Defines Spread of tumor relative to breast

VIII. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results obtained were based on a new database in SEER

datasets for Breast Cancer, by comparing three different
machine learning techniques the different models. The data
from the SEER public datasets for Breast Cancer analysis are
shown in Table II which describes the factors like sensitivity,
specificity and accuracy for different classification techniques.
This paper has explored risk factors for detection of breast
cancer by using machine learning techniques. Each method
has its own limitations and strengths specific to the type of
application. Our results shows that Random forest is better
than the other two. There are some limitations in the current
Figure 2. Proposed Experimental Model
study as we have C1 algorithm for analyzing the disease. Also,
in the many cases, the records were omitted unfortunately, and
variables have noisy so that result accuracy is affected.

Table II. Performance Comparison of : DT, RF, SVM.

Decision Tree Random Forest Support Vector Machine

Dataset
Accuracy Sensitivity Specificity Accuracy Sensitivity Specificity Accuracy Sensitivity Specificity
1 0.66 0.80 0.51 0.72 0.73 0.70 0.52 0.77 0.51
2 0.67 0.71 0.64 0.72 0.78 0.66 0.52 0.47 0.51
3 0.62 0.53 0.71 0.70 0.81 0.59 0.50 0.50 0.58
4 0.67 0.70 0.64 0.68 0.73 0.63 0.51 0.71 0.51
5 0.64 0.72 0.56 0.71 0.74 0.68 0.52 0.47 0.51
6 0.62 0.65 0.60 0.71 0.74 0.69 0.52 0.71 0.51
7 0.63 0.83 0.43 0.69 0.76 0.62 0.51 0.72 0.51
8 0.69 0.85 0.53 0.73 0.78 0.67 0.51 0.76 0.51
9 0.66 0.60 0.71 0.70 0.74 0.66 0.52 0.79 0.51
10 0.64 0.86 0.42 0.72 0.78 0.66 0.51 0.63 0.50
Mean 0.65 0.73 0.58 0.71 0.76 0.65 0.72 0.65 0.52
S.D. 0.02 0.11 0.10 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.72 0.13 0.02

(a) Accuracy of the Random Forest is better than the DT & SVM (b) Senstivity of Random forest is an average other than two

Conference Paper: II International Conference on “Advancement in Computer Engineering and Information Technology” 
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 Nafees Akhter Farooqui et al, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 9 (Special Issue II), April 2018,37-42
(c) Specificity of the Random Forest is like a Normal distribution
curve
Figure 3. Performance Comparison of DT, RF, SVM in terms of
Accuracy, Sensitivity and Specificity (i.e. a, b, c)
IX. CONCLUSION
The early detection of breast cancer will easily prevent with
the help of the different medical therapy. In this paper,
researchers analyzed breast cancer at early stage with the help
of the machine learning techniques and compared the
performance of the DT, RF and SVM. Figure 3 shows the
graphical comparative analysis of the above techniques in
terms of accuracy, sensitivity, specificity. Then find that the
Random Forest performance is better than the other techniques
to predicting the cancer at early stage. In future more, suitable
variables will be taken that gives the better result than the
older one.
X. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author thanks the DIT University, Dehradun for providing
the research grant to support this research work. The
corresponding author wishes to thanks Prof K.K. Raina and
Prof S.K. Gupta for the great cooperation and motivation for
this research.
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Conference Paper: II International Conference on “Advancement in Computer Engineering and Information Technology”
Organized by: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Integral University, Lucknow, U.P. India            41
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