title: Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Micro-Malignant Melanoma Lesions Applying Support Vector Machines.
abstract: Background. One of the fatal disorders causing death is malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The aim of the modern dermatology is the early detection of skin cancer, which usually results in reducing the mortality rate and less extensive treatment. This paper presents a study on classification of melanoma in the early stage of development using SVMs as a useful technique for data classification. Method. In this paper an automatic algorithm for the classification of melanomas in their early stage, with a diameter under 5 mm, has been presented. The system contains the following steps: image enhancement, lesion segmentation, feature calculation and selection, and classification stage using SVMs. Results. The algorithm has been tested on 200 images including 70 melanomas and 130 benign lesions. The SVM classifier achieved sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 96%. The results indicate that the proposed approach captured most of the malignant cases and could provide reliable information for effective skin mole examination. Conclusions. Micro-melanomas due to the small size and low advancement of development create enormous difficulties during the diagnosis even for experts. The use of advanced equipment and sophisticated computer systems can help in the early diagnosis of skin lesions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Automatics and Biomedical Engineering, AGH University of Science and Technology, Aleja Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland.
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0146-8652
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jaworek-Korjakowska
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D046169:Dermoscopy; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D008545:Melanoma / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D009506:Nevus / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D012985:Software Design; D060388:Support Vector Machine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data