Melanoma detection by analysis of clinical images using convolutional neural network

Melanoma, most threatening type of skin cancer, is on the rise. In this paper an implementation of a deep-learning system on a computer server, equipped with graphic processing unit (GPU), is proposed for detection of melanoma lesions. Clinical (non-dermoscopic) images are used in the proposed system, which could assist a dermatologist in early diagnosis of this type of skin cancer. In the proposed system, input clinical images, which could contain illumination and noise effects, are preprocessed in order to reduce such artifacts. Afterward, the enhanced images are fed to a pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) which is a member of deep learning models. The CNN classifier, which is trained by large number of training samples, distinguishes between melanoma and benign cases. Experimental results show that the proposed method is superior in terms of diagnostic accuracy in comparison with the state-of-the-art methods.