An automated deep learning framework for brain tumor classification using MRI imagery

Abstract

Abstract The precise and timely diagnosis of brain tumors is essential for accelerating patient recovery and preserving lives. Brain tumors exhibit a variety of sizes, shapes, and visual characteristics, requiring individualized treatment strategies for each patient. Radiologists require considerable proficiency to manually detect brain malignancies. However, tumor recognition remains inefficient, imprecise, and labor-intensive in manual procedures, underscoring the need for automated methods. This study introduces an effective approach for identifying brain lesions in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images, minimizing dependence on manual intervention. The proposed method improves image clarity by combining guided filtering techniques with anisotropic Gaussian side windows (AGSW). A morphological analysis is conducted prior to segmentation to exclude non-tumor regions from the enhanced MRI images. Deep neural networks segment the images, extracting high-quality regions of interest (ROIs) and multiscale features. Identifying salient elements is essential and is accomplished through an attention module that isolates distinctive features while eliminating irrelevant information. An ensemble model is employed to classify brain tumors into different categories. The proposed technique achieves an overall accuracy of 99.94% and 99.67% on the publicly available brain tumor datasets BraTS2020 and Figshare, respectively. Furthermore, it surpasses existing technologies in terms of automation and robustness, thereby enhancing the entire diagnostic process.