Learning methods for melanoma recognition

  • Authors:

  • Elisabetta La Torre;Barbara Caputo;Tatiana Tommasi

  • Affiliations:

  • Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Roma, Italy;IDIAP Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland;Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Roma, Italy

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Melanoma is the most deadly skin cancer. Early diagnosis is a challenge for clinicians. Current algorithms for skin lesions' classification focus mostly on segmentation and feature extraction. This article instead puts the emphasis on the learning process, testing the recognition performance of three different classifiers: support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural network and k‐nearest neighbor. Extensive experiments were run on a database of more than 5000 dermoscopy images. The obtained results show that the SVM approach outperforms the other methods reaching an average recognition rate of 82.5% comparable with those obtained by skilled clinicians. If confirmed, our data suggest that this method may improve classification results of a computer‐assisted diagnosis of melanoma. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 20, 316–322, 2010 © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.