Efficient ensemble learning with multi-scale fusion based deep neural network for skin lesion classification

Melanoma, a type of skin cancer, is a severe skin cancer that is critical for early diagnosis but difficult to detect. Deep learning is promising in melanoma diagnosis because it can automatically analyze visual features and perform end-to-end learning. However, achieving the optimum balance between performance and computational efficiency for the effective use of these models in clinical applications is an important research topic. In this study, three innovative methods are proposed for skin cancer detection: PADSCNet, P-DEFF, and M–DEFF. The PADSCNet is an effective neural network developed with CNN and multi-head attention techniques, designed with fusion methods, and stands out with its minimum number of parameters despite being quite deep. The P-DEFF and M–DEFF are based on ensemble learning techniques; P-DEFF was developed with a single deep learning model, and M–DEFF was developed with multiple pre-trained deep learning models. The proposed approaches were tested on the Skin Cancer: Malignant vs. Benign dataset, which was pre-processed using image enhancement techniques. According to the experimental results, PADSCNet achieved accuracy rates of 88.12 %, P-DEFF 93.75 %, and M–DEFF 95.00 %. In additional experiments conducted with the PADSCNet model, 93.12 % accuracy rates were achieved in the CNN for Melanoma Detection Dataset, and 95.00 % accuracy rates were achieved in the PH2 dataset. These findings show that the proposed methods are effective in skin cancer detection and can achieve successful results in clinical applications.