Quantum-Enhanced Machine Learning for Precision Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Agniva Banerjee
Cancer is the leading cause of premature mortality. Globally, the prevalence of cancer is on the rise, and early-stage diagnosis is crucial for cancer recovery and survival. However, the presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and heterogeneity within the tumor makes it hard to track how cancer changes over time and how resistance to treatment develops. Unfortunately, the cancer diagnosis precision remains inadequate, endangering precious human lives and necessitating costly procedures for accurate treatment. Machine learning (ML) has proven capable of discovering meaningful information and making predictions, particularly with large datasets. Moreover, quantum computers (QCs) inherently possess superposition and parallel computation, features not found in classical computing. Researchers have demonstrated that quantum neural networks (QNNs) achieve a significantly better effective dimension than classical NNs. In this context, this study investigates the application of classical and quantum machine learning (QML) algorithms to classify breast cancer images. Region-based segmentation is used to identify regions of interest and image processing algorithms are performed on segmented breast cancer images to extract meaningful features (e.g., perimeter, area, compactness). An user interface (UI) based software is created to swiftly distinguish benign and malignant instances during image analysis. Although QNNs perform poorly than the classical NNs, there is still a long way to go in developing feature maps and techniques for better performance. In contrast, the classical NNs have gone a long way with well-established algorithms and packages available to us. This research shows that with further development, QML has the potential to enhance cancer diagnosis accuracy and speed, ultimately improving early detection and treatment outcomes.
•Jan 6, 2025•6 citations