Exploring Feature Selection Techniques for Machine Learning-based Melanoma Skin Cancer Classification

Sammanfattning: One of the most globally common types of cancer is skin cancer, where melanoma is the most deadly form. An important and promising tool for diagnosing diseases such as skin cancer is computer aided diagnostics, a tool which utilizes machine learning to predict and classify cancer. Limiting the complexity of the data, known as feature selection, can potentially improve classification accuracy. This report evaluates the accuracy of four different classifiers - Support Vector Machine, Naive Bayes, Decision Tree and Artificial Neural Network - with four different feature selection methods - Sequantial Forward Selection, Sequantial Backward Selection, Entropy and Principal Component Analysis - on the PH2 skin cancer dataset, containing dermoscopic images of skin lesions and their respective metadata. The findings reveal that all feature selection methods led to an improved accuracy rate on at least one classifier compared to not using feature selection. Furthermore, certain feature selection methods resulted in a significant gain in accuracy, indicating the potential value of feature selection techniques in improving the accuracy and efficiency of machine learning classifiers in computer-aided diagnosis systems for melanoma skin cancer detection. However, the results also underscore the importance of careful selection of the number of features to avoid adverse effects on model performance. This research contributes to the field by demonstrating the impact of feature selection methods on melanoma skin cancer detection and highlighting considerations for their application.