Breast Cancer Detection using Machine Learning
Mayank Singh Mayank Singh
department of computer science department of computer science
Galgotias University Galgotias University
Uttar Pradesh, India Uttar Pradesh, India
mt029322@gmail.com mayank77s77@gmail.com
Abstract—Breast cancer is one of the most deadly diseases that
may affect women. There are numerous subcategories of breast
cancer; the type of cancer is determined by which breast cells
become malignant. It is very important to detect any disease in its
early stages so that it can be cured with ease. Machine learning
is one of the most effective tools to detect breast cancer. Machine
learning helps in training the machine easily and creating some
models that can predict the chances of breast cancer in females.
Some of the most common machine learning classifiers for breast
cancer detection are SVM, Naive Bayes, Logistic Regression,
KNN, and Decision tree. The purpose of this research is to find
out the best machine-learning technique that provides the most
accuracy for the detection of breast cancer among females. The
accuracy of machine learning models can differ for different
datasets. This research is experimented on over different datasets
of large and small sizes, and after analysing the accuracies of
these machine learning techniques, a conclusion is drawn.
Index Terms—Machine Learning, Breast Cancer, Naive Bayes,
SVM, KNN, Logistic Regression.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Cancer is a condition in which the body’s cells grow
uncontrollably and form a mass of tissue generally known
as a tumour. The speed of division of these cells is much
faster compared to healthy cells in the body. According to
statistics, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women;
every 1 out of 3 females diagnosed with cancer is a breast
cancer patient. A survey conducted by the WHO shows that
in 2020, over 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast
cancer, among whom 6,85000 deaths were reported globally.
Despite advances in technology in the medical field, it is still
the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in women. The
awareness of breast cancer is very low, which is why most
people ignore it, and it costs them their lives. Breast cancer
usually starts in the cells present in the milk-producing ducts
(invasive ductal carcinoma), and it easily spreads all over the
breast. It can also begin in glandular tissue known as lobules
(invasive lobular carcinoma) or some other cells or tissues in
the breast.
Many factors can increase the chances of breast cancer in
females; some of them are lifestyle, heredity, and ionizing
radiation. Even though it is still debatable, some females with
little or no exposure to the risk factors of cancer get affected
by it, while others with direct exposure to the causes are safe.
It can affect any female, even if there is no family history
of cancer gene inheritance. Only 5 to 10% of cases of breast
Mr. Hradesh Kumar
department of computer science
Galgotias University
Uttar Pradesh, India
hradesh.kumar@galgotiasuniversity.edu.in
cancer include inheritance from one generation to another. Two
of the most popularly inherited genes that cause breast cancer
are breast cancer gene 1 (BRCA1) and breast cancer gene 2
(BRCA2). The percentage of patient diagnosed with breast
cancer are increasing by 0.5% every year. It is important to
have an awareness about the disease so that it will be easy to
detect the disease and take necessary actions to cure it.
Diseases can be dangerous and even life-threatening if it is
not diagnosed in the early stage. Most cancer patients lose
their lives because of the failure to detection of the disease
before it becomes incurable. Having an effective technique
is one of the most important thing for the diagnosis of breast
cancer among females so that the doctor can plan the treatment
accordingly. The traditional way of diagnosis of breast cancer
is time consuming as well as requires a lot of human efforts.
Machine learning algorithms provides an efficient way to
detect breast cancer with more accuracy and decreases the
chances of human errors. With the help of machine learning,
different models can be trained and the results will be out in
less time.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
Machine learning is an efficient method to detect breast
cancer as it uses various classifiers such as SVM, Decision
Trees, KNN, and Naive Bayes to aid diagnosis. However, the
issue arises as to which classifier provides the most accurate
results, given that the accuracy of various classifiers may
vary. Numerous studies and researches have been conducted
in the past to identify the most precise and efficient machine
learning algorithm. The purpose of all research is to discover
the most effective methods for early cancer detection. This
section describes past machine learning-based breast cancer
detection studies.
A research project named ”Breast cancer detection using
machine learning techniques” was carried out by Sweta Bhise,
Simran Bepari, Shrutika Gadekar, and Deepmala Kale with
the objective of determining which of the several machine
learning algorithms is better compared to others. CNN was
used as a classifier, and for feature selection, RFE was used.
The study also included a comparison of the method that they
employed to other machine learning algorithms, including
SVM, Naive Bayes, and KNN. The primary purpose of their
research was to differentiate between malignant and benign
tumours by using a convolutional neural network with a Keras
backend, and the secondary objective was to study the data
to identify how the model might be implemented in practise
after having accomplished the primary objective. According
to the findings of their investigation, CNN is superior to the
other methodologies in terms of accuracy, precision, and the
size of the data set.[1]
Researchers Habib Dhahri, Eslam Al Maghayreh, Awais
Mahmood, Wail Elkilani, and Mohammed Faisal Nagi did
a study with the working title ”Automated Breast Cancer
Diagnosis Based on Machine Learning Algorithms” in order
to investigate the problem of autonomous breast cancer
diagnosis using an algorithm that is based on machine
learning. In the course of their investigation, there were three
separate experiments conducted. During the first experiment,
they were able to show that the three evolutionary algorithms
that are used the most often are capable of producing
similar results given the appropriate conditions. In the
second experiment, we looked into the idea that combining
different methods for choosing features will lead to improved
accuracy. During the final test, we were able to derive how
to independently create the supervised machine learning
classifier. They used the GP method in an effort to solve
the hyperparameter issue, which is problematic for machine
learning algorithms. This problem causes challenges for the
algorithms.[2]
Kalyani Wadkar, Prashant Pathak, and Nikhil Wagh conducted
an in-depth comparison of ANN and SVM and incorporated
multiple classifiers such as CNN, KNN, and Inception V3
to enhance dataset processing. The research outcomes and
performance analysis discovered that ANN was a superior
classifier to SVM because ANN demonstrated a higher rate
of effectiveness.[3]
In a study titled ”Machine Learning Algorithms for
Breast Cancer Prediction and Diagnosis,” Mohammed Amine
Naji, Sanaa El Filali, Kawtar Aarika, EL Habib Benlahmar,
Rachida Ait Abdelouhahid, and Olivier Debauche identified
that Support Vector Machine succeeded in an accuracy
rating of 97.2%, precision of 97.5%, and AUC of 96.6%
and beat the rest of the algorithms. The primary goal of
the study paper was to predict and diagnose breast cancer
using machine-learning algorithms and to determine the most
successful with regard to confusion matrix, accuracy, and
precision.[4]
A research project dubbed ”PSOWNNs-CNN” was carried out
by Ashkan Nomani, Yasaman Ansari, Mohammad Hossein
Nasirpour, Armin Masoumian, Ehsan Sadeghi Pour, and
Amin Valizadeh. The purpose of the study was to investigate
several methods for diagnosing breast cancer using artificial
intelligence and computational imaging. Using methods
from machine learning, the authors suggest an innovative
approach to the detection of breast cancer. There is also an
approach called the particle swarm optimised wavelet neural
network (PSOWNN), which seems to be superior to existing
methods like CNN. On the basis of the comparison of the
905 pictures generated by the method with those generated
by other illnesses, 98.6% of the ailments have been correctly
identified. They arrived at the conclusion that the specificity
of PSOWNNs is 98.8 percent. In addition, PSOWNNs have
a precision of 98.6%, which implies that, despite the fact
that a huge number of women are affected by breast cancer,
only 830 (95.2%) are verified with a high level of certainty
as having the illness.[5]
Comparisons of SVM, logistic regression, naive bayes,
and random forest have been carried out by Sivapriya J.,
Aravind Kumar V., Siddarth Sai S., and Sriram S. The
Wisconsin breast cancer dataset is used in the comparative
analysis that is being carried out. According to the findings of
investigations, the Random Forest algorithm has the highest
level of accuracy (99.76%) and the lowest proportion of
mistakes. For all of the experiments that were carried out
in the simulated environment, the Anaconda Data Science
Platform was applied.[6]
According to the findings of the study ”Using Machine
Learning Algorithms for Breast Cancer Risk Prediction
and Diagnosis” by Hiba Asria, Hajar Mousannifb, Hassan
Al Moatassimec, and Thomas Noeld, the SVM algorithm
delivers the greatest accuracy of 97.13 percent with fewer
errors when compared to KNN, NB, and C4.5 (decision tree).
The search for an effective algorithm for machine learning
was the one and only objective of the inquiry.[7]
Written by Mohamed Ebrahim, Ahmed Ahmed Hesham, and
Saleh Mesbah, ”Accuracy Assessment of Machine Learning
Algorithms Used to Predict Breast Cancer” This article
presents a comprehensive and objective evaluation of several
machine learning-based breast cancer prediction methods. For
the purpose of this research, the National Cancer Institute
(NCI) in the United States provided access to their database
of 1.7 million data records. Both standard and deep learning
approaches were used in the assessment of the system’s
accuracy. Decision tree (DT), linear discriminant (LD),
logistic regression (LR), support vector machine (SVM), and
ensemble techniques (ET) were the methods that were used.
Techniques such as probabilistic neural networks (PNN),
deep neural networks (DNN), and recurrent neural networks
(RNN) were examined and contrasted against one another.
Additionally, the impact that feature selection has on accuracy
was looked into. The findings showed that decision trees
and ensemble approaches performed better than the other
procedures, as they both achieved an accuracy of 98.7%. This
was shown by the fact that both strategies produced the same
outcome.[8]
The dataset that was generated by Dr. William H. Walberg at
the University of Wisconsin Hospital was used by Muhammet
Fatih Ak. Data visualisation and machine learning techniques
such as logistic regression, k-nearest neighbours, support
vector machines, naive Bayes, decision trees, random
forests, and rotation forests were used in the analysis of
this dataset. The programming languages R, Minitab, and
Python were chosen for usage in conjunction with these
machine learning methods and visualisations. An analysis
of each method’s strengths and weaknesses was carried
out. When all of the features were accounted for in the
logistic regression model, the classification accuracy was
at its highest level (98.1%), and the recommended strategy
demonstrated an improvement in the accuracy of its results.[9]
According to the findings of the study ”Breast cancer
detection using machine learning techniques,” written by
Sarthak Vyas, Abhinav Chauhan, Deepak Rana, and Noman
Ansari, the support vector machine (SVM) provides the
greatest level of accuracy among all machine learning
algorithms. This research suggests that the machine learning
(ML) methods known as decision trees, artificial neural
networks, K-nearest neighbours, and support vector machines
be used in order to achieve a diagnosis of breast cancer that
is both effective and accurate and it was also observed that
the error rate of SVM was very low as compared to the other
machine learning algorithms.[10]
K. Anastraj, Dr. T. Chakravarthy, and K. Sriram examined four
machine learning methods using the original Wisconsin breast
cancer datasets. These algorithms were the back propagation
network, artificial neural network (ANN), convolutional
neural network (CNN), and support vector machine (SVM).
A deep and convolutional neural network that was trained
using ALEXNET was used both for the purpose of gathering
features and for the assessment of benign and malignant
tumours. According to the findings of the simulation, the
support vector machine is the most successful method since
it achieved better outcomes (94%).[11]
The study titled ”Automated breast cancer detection by
reconstruction independent component analysis (RICA)-based
hybrid features using machine learning paradigms” proposes
an integrated approach to the obtaining of features. This
approach is based on texture, morphology, scale invariant
feature transform (SIFT), grey level co-occurrence matrix
(GLCM), entropy, elliptic fourier descriptors (EFDs), RICA,
and sparse filtering techniques. Detecting breast cancer has
been accomplished by the use of a number of different
machine learning strategies, such as support vector machines
(SVM), decision trees (DT), k-nearest neighbour, and Nave
Bayes classifiers. The RICA-based feature set that made use
of the SVM RBF resulted in an overall accuracy of 94.88%
and a ROC AUC value of 0.9914. All of the studies like
these are conducted to provide best results to the world so
that the detection of the disease can be as possible as early
as possible.[12]
III. P ROPOSED S YSTEM
The data set that we have used throughout the course of
this research was obtained from the kaggle website. To begin
the process of putting various machine learning algorithms
into action, we must first import several libraries such as
Numpy, Pandas, and matplotlib.
The following step is to import that data set, followed
by the visualisation using bar graphs for the number of
patients with malignant and benign tumours.
Feature selection
A crucial stage in constructing a machine learning model
for breast cancer detection is the selection of features. It
entails selecting the most pertinent and informative features
(or variables) from the available data, which can enhance the
model’s precision and performance.
The feature selection method which we have used in our
research is RFE.
RFE is an abbreviation for recursive feature elimination
is a feature selection process that improves a model by
deleting the feature (or features) with the worst predictive
power until the target number of features is obtained. RFE
attempts to get rid of dependencies and collinearity by
repeatedly deleting just a few of features at a time throughout
each iteration. Features are sorted according on the coef
or f eatureimportances attributes associated with their
respective models.
Next step is using the confusion matrix to get the accuracies.
A confusion matrix provides a tabular representation of the
diverse findings from a classification problem’s prediction
and results and aids in visualising them. Choosing a model is
the most crucial aspect of machine learning. Classifications of
machine learning algorithms include supervised learning and
unsupervised learning. Our research requires only supervised
learning. We utilised all predictive methodologies and
recorded their accuracy as well as visualized the accuracies
of various ML algorithms using bar graphs alone to discover
the most efficient one.
Here TP=True positive, TN=True negative, FP=False postive,
FN=False negative.

Accuracy=(TP+TN)/(TP+TN+FP+FN).
Given below is the proposed architecture diagram of the
system:
CLASSIFIERS
Support Vector Machine
A basic linear SVM classifier draws a straight line between
two classes. This indicates that each data point on one side
of the line corresponds to a single category, and data points
on the other side of the line fall into another category. This
means you can choose from an infinite number of lines. This
makes the linear SVM algorithm superior to other algorithms
such as k-nearest neighbour is to select the best line to
classify the data points. A line is selected that separates the
data as far away from the cabinet data points as possible.
Another reason to use SVMs is that you can find complex
relationships between data without performing quite a bit of
transformations yourself.
Logistic Regression
The linear regression hyperplane cannot be applied for
predicting the variable that is dependents using the
independent variable. Therefore, if you have data that
is categorical, you will use logistic regression. Logistic
Regression determines whether a statement is true or false,
in contrast to a continuum. Used for categorising. Using the
sigmoid function, the independent variable is transformed
into a probability expression spanning from 0 to 1 with
respect to the dependent variable. It is a popular machine
learning algorithm due to its ability to offer probabilities and
categorise new samples based on continuous and discrete
measures. Logical regression assumes linearity between the
dependent and independent variables, which is a limitation.
K-Nearest Neighbour
K-Nearest Neighbour is one of the simplest supervised
learning-based machine learning algorithms. The K-NN
algorithm implies similarities between the new cases/data and
existing cases and positions new cases in categories most
closely resembling to existing categories. The K-Nave Bayes
algorithm stores available data and categorises new data
elements according to similarities. KNN operates by locating
a point in the data that is near to the new point entering the
machine. The algorithm then individually sorts these points
of closest approach with respect to the point of arrival in the
range frame. This point distance is measured using a variety
of methods, but the Euclidean distance is most commonly
used by professionals.
Naive Bayes
The Naive Bayes classification algorithm is a classification
algorithm that uses supervised learning. It is based on Bayes’
theorem, which determines the chance of an occurrence after
the event has occurred. It is one of the simplest yet most
powerful ML algorithms presently in use and is used in many
kinds of industries. In practise, Bayes’ naive assumption that
all predictors (or features) are independent is uncommon.
This constrains the practical applicability of the algorithm.
This algorithm confronts the ”zero frequency problem” of
assigning zero probability to categorical variables whose
categories were not present in the training dataset. This issue
can be resolved using a filtering strategy. To attain the utmost
level of accuracy, the Naive Bayes method requires large data
sets.
Decision Tree
Decision trees are a supervised learning technique that can
be used to solve both classification and regression problems,
but are primarily suited for classification problems. It is
a tree-structured classifier with internal nodes representing
data set characteristics, branches representing decision rules,
and leaf nodes representing outcomes. A decision tree has
two nodes: a leaf node and a decision node. Decision nodes
are used to make decisions and contain multiple branches,
whereas leaf nodes are the result of those decisions and do not
contain any additional branches. Based on the characteristics
of a specific data set, a decision or test is made.
IV. OUTPUT
Among the evaluated machine learning algorithms, logistic
regression demonstrated the highest level of accuracy, with a
95.6% accuracy rate, according to our research. The next most
accurate algorithm was Decision Tree, with an accuracy rate
of 94.74%, followed by Naive Bayes, with an accuracy rate of
93.10%. Support Vector Machine achieved an accuracy rate
of 93.8%, while K-Nearest Neighbour achieved an accuracy
rate of 93.7%.
The following are the results of this entire study, namely the
accuracy of various machine learning algorithms:
Support Vector Machine: 0.9385964912280702
Logistic Regression: 0.956140350877193
K-Nearest Neighbour: 0.9385964912280702
Naive Bayes: 0.9473684210526315
Decision Tree: 0.9473684210526315

These accuracies are calculated using the formula:
The graph below illustrates the total number of patients
with malignant and benign tumours. Benign indicates the
number of patient that are not having cancer and malignant
shows the number of patient that are actually affected by
cancer(i.e. blue bar indicates the number of malignant patients
and orange bar represents the number of benign patients):
V. C ONCLUSION
This research was conducted solely for the purpose of
identifying the machine learning algorithm that produces the
most accurate results. We have analysed various machine
learning algorithms such as SVM, KNN, decision tree, naive
bayes, and logistic regression, which provide the most accurate
results (95.6%). The method that we have used for feature
selection is RFE, i.e., recursive feature elimination, which
helped us to select only the relevant features for our research
from the dataset. This research led us to conclude that logistic
regression is the most effective of these five machine learning
algorithms. The sole need that must be met before using the
system is the data to first complete preprocessing and apply
the right feature selection method. Although it provides the
optimal solution, there is always room for improvement, and
it can be optimised further in the future using new technologies
for larger datasets.
VI. R EFERENCES
[1] Sweta Bhise, Simran Bepari, Shrutika Gadekar, and
Deepmala Kale ”Breast cancer detection using machine
learning techniques”(2021)
[2] Habib Dhahri, Eslam Al Maghayreh, Awais Mahmood,
Wail Elkilani, and Mohammed Faisal Nagi ”Automated
Breast Cancer Diagnosis Based on Machine Learning
Algorithms”(2019).
[3] Kalyani Wadkar, Prashant Pathak and Nikhil Wagh “Breast
Cancer Detection Using ANN Network and Performance
Analysis with SVM” (2019).
[4] Mohammed Amine Naji, Sanaa El Filali, Kawtar
Aarika, EL Habib Benlahmar, Rachida Ait Abdelouhahid and
Olivier Debauche “Machine Learning Algorithms For Breast
Cancer Prediction And Diagnosis” (2021).
[5] Ashkan Nomani, Yasaman Ansari, Mohammad Hossein
Nasirpour, Armin Masoumian, Ehsan Sadeghi Pour and Amin
Valizadeh ”PSOWNNs-CNN: A Computational Radiology
for Breast Cancer Diagnosis Improvement Based on Image
Processing Using Machine Learning Methods”.(2022)
[6] Sivapriya J, Aravind Kumar V, Siddarth Sai S, Sriram S
”Breast Cancer Prediction using Machine Learning” (2019).
[7] Hiba Asria, Hajar Mousannifb, Hassan Al Moatassimec,
Thomas Noeld ”Using Machine Learning Algorithms for
Breast Cancer Risk Prediction and Diagnosis”.(2016)
[8] Mohamed Ebrahim,Ahmed Ahmed Hesham and Saleh
Mesbah ”Accuracy Assessment of Machine Learning
Algorithms Used to Predict Breast Cancer” (2023).
[9] Muhammet Fatih Ak ”A Comparative Analysis of Breast
Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Using Data Visualization
and Machine Learning Applications” (2020).
[10] Sarthak Vyas, Abhinav Chauhan, Deepak Rana,
Noman Ansari “Breast Cancer Detection Using Machine
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[11] K.Anastraj , Dr.T.Chakravarthy and K.Sriram ”
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