Enhancing Brain Tumor Detection from MRI-Based Images Through Deep Transfer Learning Models

Brain tumors are abnormal tissue growth characterized by uncontrolled and rapid cell proliferation. Early detection of brain tumors is critical for improving patient outcomes, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become the most widely used modality for diagnosis due to its superior image quality and non-invasive nature. Deep learning, a subset of artificial intelligence, has revolutionized automated medical image analysis by enabling highly accurate and efficient classification tasks. The objective of this study is to develop a robust and effective brain tumor detection system using MRI images through transfer learning. A diagnostic framework is constructed based on convolutional neural networks (CNN), integrating both a custom sequential CNN model and pretrained architectures, namely VGG16 and EfficientNetB4, trained on the ImageNet dataset. Prior to model training, image preprocessing techniques are applied to enhance feature extraction and overall model performance. This research addresses the common challenge of limited MRI datasets by combining EfficientNetB4 with targeted preprocessing, data augmentation, and an appropriate optimizer selection strategy. The proposed methodology significantly reduces overfitting, improves classification accuracy on small datasets, and remains computationally efficient. Unlike previous studies that focus solely on CNN or VGG16 architectures, this work systematically compares multiple transfer learning models and demonstrates the superiority of EfficientNetB4. Experimental results on the Br35H dataset show that EfficientNetB4, combined with the ADAM optimizer, achieves outstanding performance with an accuracy of 99.66%, precision of 99.68%, and an F1-score of 100%. The findings confirm that integrating EfficientNetB4 with dataset-specific preprocessing and transfer learning provides a highly accurate and cost-effective solution for brain tumor classification, facilitating rapid and reliable medical diagnosis.