Optimizing Deep Learning for Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Lung Diseases: An Automated Method Combining Evolutionary Algorithm and Transfer Learning

Recent advancements in Computer Vision have opened up new opportunities for addressing complex healthcare challenges, particularly in the area of lung disease diagnosis. Chest X-rays, a commonly used radiological technique, hold great potential in this regard. To leverage this potential, researchers have proposed the use of deep learning methods for building computer-aided diagnostic systems. However, the design and compression of these systems remains a challenge, as it depends heavily on the expertise of the data scientists. To address this, we propose an automated method that utilizes an evolutionary algorithm (EA) to optimize the design and compression of a convolutional neural network (CNN) for X-Ray image classification. This method is capable of accurately classifying radiography images and detecting possible chest abnormalities and infections, including COVID-19. Additionally, the method incorporates transfer learning, where a pre-trained CNN model on a large dataset of chest X-ray images is fine-tuned for the specific task of detecting COVID-19. This approach can help to reduce the amount of labeled data required for the specific task and improve the overall performance of the model. Our method has been validated through a series of experiments against relevant state-of-the-art architectures.