Two-Stage Input-Space Image Augmentation and Interpretable Technique for Accurate and Explainable Skin Cancer Diagnosis

This research paper presents a deep-learning approach to early detection of skin cancer using image augmentation techniques. We introduce a two-stage image augmentation process utilizing geometric augmentation and a generative adversarial network (GAN) to differentiate skin cancer categories. The public HAM10000 dataset was used to test how well the proposed model worked. Various pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) models, including Xception, Inceptionv3, Resnet152v2, EfficientnetB7, InceptionresnetV2, and VGG19, were employed. Our approach demonstrates an accuracy of 96.90%, precision of 97.07%, recall of 96.87%, and F1-score of 96.97%, surpassing the performance of other state-of-the-art methods. The paper also discusses the use of Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP), an interpretable technique for skin cancer diagnosis, which can help clinicians understand the reasoning behind the diagnosis and improve trust in the system. Overall, the proposed method presents a promising approach to automated skin cancer detection that could improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.