Machine Learning Based Decision Support System for the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is among the most prevalent diseases encountered among women worldwide. Early diagnosis of breast cancer is crucial for the treatment of the disease. Detecting the disease at an early stage prevents deaths resulting from the condition. Recently, computer-aided systems have been developed to ensure early-stage diagnosis and accuracy of breast cancer. Computer-aided systems developed with machine learning approaches significantly contribute to the process of diagnosing breast cancer. The aim of this study is to propose a new classification system based on machine learning algorithms developed for the diagnosis of breast cancer. In this study, sub-data sets were created by reducing features, and data cleaning processes were applied. After these procedures, stages such as feature selection and feature extraction were applied. In this study, classification processes such as Ensemble, k- Nearest Neighbors (kNN), Support Vector Machines (SVMs), and Hybrid Artificial Intelligence were used in line with machine learning. With the obtained results, a Breast Cancer diagnosis algorithm was created. Performance evaluation criteria such as accuracy rate, specificity, sensitivity, kappa number and F-Measure were applied to the created algorithms. In the results obtained in this study, the highest accuracy rate was found to be 99.3% with the Ensemble method, the highest specificity rate was 98.7% with the Ensemble method, and the highest sensitivity rate was found to be 100% with many methods. In light of these results, it was observed that the machine learning algorithms used in this study, implemented in the Matlab environment, were effective. Consequently, it was proven that higher accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity rates can be found with different machine learning techniques. This also demonstrates that the study in our article is a reliable one in detecting diseased and healthy individuals in the diagnosis of breast cancer, showing that it is a more applicable and feasible study in the healthcare field.