LesNet: An Automated Skin Lesion Deep Convolutional Neural Network Classifier through Augmentation and Transfer Learning

Abstract

Skin cancer is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer around the world. Initial diagnosis relies on visual assessment of the affected area, followed by detailed dermoscopic analysis. The development of an automated system for classifying skin lesions poses a considerable challenge due to inherent noise and subtle variability in lesion images. Deep convolutional neural networks have demonstrated exceptional proficiency in image classification tasks spanning diverse domains. This paper demonstrates an end-to-end classification architecture built on top of transfer learning with data augmentation. The proposed model capitalizes on pre-trained architectures such as DenseNet, VGG-16, and Inception for feature extraction, and employs fully connected dense layers for categorizing seven distinct types of lesions. Several data augmentation techniques are also used to handle the class imbalance problem. Extensive experimentation encompassing various hyperparameters, imbalanced data scenarios, and balanced datasets was conducted to refine the automated skin lesion system. The proposed approach achieved a notable accuracy of 98% on the HAM10000 dataset and 94% on the ISIC-2019 dataset. Importantly, the experimental findings surpassed the performance of current state-of-the-art models for lesion classification. Furthermore, this paper examines the impact of class imbalance and data augmentation on the model's accuracy.