Deep Learning Framework for Early Detection of Pancreatic Cancer Using Multi-modal Medical Imaging Analysis

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains one of the most lethal forms of cancer, with a five-year survival rate below 10% primarily due to late detection [1]. This research develops and validates a deep learning framework for early PDAC detection through analysis of dual-modality imaging: autofluorescence and Second Harmonic Generation (SHG). We analyzed 40 unique patient samples to create a specialized neural network capable of distinguishing between normal, fibrotic, and cancerous tissue. Our methodology evaluated six distinct deep learning architectures, comparing traditional Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) with modern Vision Transformers (ViTs). Through systematic experimentation, we identified and overcame significant challenges in medical image analysis, including limited dataset size and class imbalance. The final optimized framework, based on a modified ResNet architecture with frozen pre-trained layers and class-weighted training, achieved over 90% accuracy in cancer detection. This represents a significant improvement over current manual analysis methods and demonstrates potential for clinical deployment. This work establishes a robust pipeline for automated PDAC detection that can augment pathologists' capabilities while providing a foundation for future expansion to other cancer types. The developed methodology also offers valuable insights for applying deep learning to limited-size medical imaging datasets, a common challenge in clinical applications.