Advances in colorectal cancer diagnosis using optimal deep feature fusion approach on biomedical images

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second popular cancer in females and third in males, with an increased number of cases. Pathology diagnoses complemented with predictive and prognostic biomarker information is the first step for personalized treatment. Histopathological image (HI) analysis is the benchmark for pathologists to rank colorectal cancer of various kinds. However, pathologists' diagnoses are highly subjective and susceptible to inaccurate diagnoses. The improved diagnosis load in the pathology laboratory, incorporated with the reported intra- and inter-variability in the biomarker assessment, has prompted the quest for consistent machine-based techniques to be integrated into routine practice. In the healthcare field, artificial intelligence (AI) has achieved extraordinary achievements in healthcare applications. Lately, computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) based on HI has progressed rapidly with the increase of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) based models. This study introduces a novel Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis using the Optimal Deep Feature Fusion Approach on Biomedical Images (CCD-ODFFBI) method. The primary objective of the CCD-ODFFBI technique is to examine the biomedical images to identify colorectal cancer (CRC). In the CCD-ODFFBI technique, the median filtering (MF) approach is initially utilized for noise elimination. The CCD-ODFFBI technique utilizes a fusion of three DL models, MobileNet, SqueezeNet, and SE-ResNet, for feature extraction. Moreover, the DL models' hyperparameter selection is performed using the Osprey optimization algorithm (OOA). Finally, the deep belief network (DBN) model is employed to classify CRC. A series of simulations is accomplished to highlight the significant results of the CCD-ODFFBI method under the Warwick-QU dataset. The comparison of the CCD-ODFFBI method showed a superior accuracy value of 99.39% over existing techniques.