Deep convolutional neural networks as a decision support

tool in medical problems ± malignant melanoma case

study

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Abstract. The paper presents utilization of one of the latest tool from the group
of Machine learning techniques, namely Deep Convolutional Neural Networks
(CNN), in process of decision making in selected medical problems. After
the survey of the most successful applications of CNN in solving medical prob-
lems, the paper focuses on the very difficult problem of automatic analyses
of the skin lesions. The authors propose the CNN structure and the way to cope
with the insufficient number of learning data. The research was carried out
and validated on the data base of over 10000 images. The efficiency
of the proposed approach reaches 84%.

Keywords: deep learning, deep convolutional neural network, image analysis,

machine learning, malignant melanoma, transfer learning

1 Introduction

Deep neural networks (DNN) are currently the main tool for image analysis. The most
popular deep learning architecture is convolutional neural network (CNN) [1].
The one of the first application of convolutional network was bank the check reading
system, created in 1993. By the ODWH¶VV\VWHPZDVUHDGLQJ over 10% of all checks
in US [2]. The number of applications increased over time. Google used deep learning
algorithms for face and license plates recognition in StreetView images. Detected
faces and plates were then blurred for privacy protection [3].
Current huge interest in deep learning began in 2012, when convolutional neural
network won famous ImageNet Large-Scale Visual Recognition Challenge. Deploy-
ment of deep learning algorithms enabled for decreasing of classification error from
26.1% to 15.3%, comparing with the conventional methods [4]. Since that time, deep
learning (DL) methods develop rapidly. Research on deep learning is supported
by academic and commercial environment. Convolutional neural networks are cur-
rently the state of the art tool for image recognition.
Deep convolutional neural networks are used not only in computer vision tasks.
Deep architectures achieved satisfactory results in the fields such as: speech recogni-
tion [5], natural language processing [6], machine translation [7], reinforcement learn-
ing [8], speech synthesis [9]. Moreover, the system based on deep learning has de-

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 848

W. Mitkowski et al. (Eds. ), Trends in Advanced Intelligent Control, Optimization and Automation,
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 577, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60699-6_81
Deep convolutional neural networks as a decision support tool ... 849

feated world champion in game of GO, that is considered much more complex than
chess [10]. This event is considered as a milestone in artificial intelligence research.
Deep learning has produced promising results in different medical tasks.
The algorithms have been adapted to medical image analysis such as MRI, dermato-
scopic images, standard images. Deep neural networks were used for: mammography
mass lesion classification [11], tissue classification [12], detection of diabetic reti-
nopathy in retinal fundus photographs [13], Alzheimer disease classification [14].
In this paper we propose deep convolutional neural network for malignant mela-
noma classification. Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the world. Malignant
melanomas represent from 5 to 8% of the skin cancer. Early diagnosis is a key
to successful treatment and allows to improve survival rate. Too late or not diagnosed
malignant melanoma can cause death.
The paper is organized as follows: in Sect. 2 we describe fundamentals of deep
convolutional networks. The details of implemented system are described in Sect. 3.
In Sect. 4 we present achieved results. We conclude the paper in Sect. 5.

2 Deep convolutional neural network ± fundamentals

Deep neural networks are composed of multiple modules (Fig.1.), aligned one after
other. Each module consists of following layers:

x convolutional layer,
x nonlinear layer,
x pooling (subsampling) layer

The sequence of these layers is repeated several times leading to multilayer structure
with very large number of layers. The last part of DNN is conventional multilayer
feedforward neural network with added dropout layer between its layers.

Fig. 1. Deep convolutional neural network architecture [2]