Development of a Deep Learning-Based System for Cat Skin Disease Classification and Grad-CAM Visualization

Skin diseases in companion cats can worsen if not treated promptly, and this can increase the financial burden on pet owners. To prevent this, early and accurate diagnosis is essential. This study introduces a deep learning-based Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CADx) system designed to classify cat skin diseases into non-inflammatory and inflammatory lesions by comparing them with normal images. The system employs the EfficientNetV2 model and incorporates image augmentation techniques like AutoAugment and AugMix to enhance classification performance. The study results indicate that the developed model achieved an 84.68% accuracy for non-inflammatory lesions, reflecting a 10.06% improvement, and a 97.19% accuracy for inflammatory lesions, reflecting a 2.45% improvement. Furthermore, we applied Grad-CAM to visualize the regions of interest in the images, offering veterinarians critical insights into the location and characteristics of the lesions. This system has the potential to significantly improve the precision of diagnosing skin diseases in companion cats, thereby supporting better veterinary care.