Breast Cancer classification using extracted parameters from a terahertz dielectric model of human breast tissue

Our previous study proposed a dielectric model for human breast tissue and provided initial analysis of classification potential of the eight model parameters and their multiparameter combinations with the support vector machine (SVM). A combination of three model parameters could achieve a leave-one-out cross validation accuracy of 93.2%. However, the SVM approach fails to exploit the combinations of more than three model parameters for classification improvement. Thus, the Bayesian neural network (BNN) method is employed to overcome this problem based on its advantages of handling our small data and high complexity of the multiparamter combinations. The BNN successfully classifies the data using the combinations of four model parameters with an accuracy, estimated by leave-one-out cross validation, of 97.3%. Overall performance assessed by leaveone-out and repeated random-subsampling cross validations for all examined combinations is also remarkably improved by BNN. The results indicate the advance of BNN as compared to SVM in utilising the model parameters for detecting tumour from normal breast tissue.