Machine learning for predictions of cervical cancer identification – preliminary investigation based on refractive index

Cervical cancer is one of the most commonly appearing cancers, which early diagnosis is of greatest importance. Unfortunately, many diagnoses are based on subjective opinions of doctors – to date, there is no general measurement method with a calibrated standard. The problem can be solved with the measurement system being a fusion of an optoelectronic sensor and machine learning algorithm to provide reliable assistance for doctors in the early diagnosis stage of cervical cancer. We demonstrate the preliminary research on cervical cancer assessment utilizing optical sensor and prediction algorithm. Since each matter is characterized by refractive index, measuring its value and detecting changes give information about the state of the tissue. The optical measurements provided datasets for training and validating the analyzing software. We present data preprocessing, machine learning results utilizing three algorithms (Random Forest, eXtreme Gradient Boosting, Naïve Bayes) and assessment of their performance for classification of tissue as healthy or sick. All of them provided high values (>89%) of the measures describing them. Our solution allows for rapid sample measurement and automatic classification of the results constituting a potential support tool for doctors.