An interpretable framework for gastric cancer classification using multi-channel attention mechanisms and transfer learning approach on histopathology images

The importance of gastric cancer (GC) and the role of deep learning techniques in categorizing GC histopathology images have recently increased. Identifying the drawbacks of traditional deep learning models, including lack of interpretability, inability to capture complex patterns, lack of adaptability, and sensitivity to noise. A multi-channel attention mechanism-based framework is proposed that can overcome the limitations of conventional deep learning models by dynamically focusing on relevant features, enhancing extraction, and capturing complex relationships in medical data. The proposed framework uses three different attention mechanism channels and convolutional neural networks to extract multichannel features during the classification process. The proposed framework’s strong performance is confirmed by competitive experiments conducted on a publicly available Gastric Histopathology Sub-size Image Database, which yielded remarkable classification accuracies of 99.07% and 98.48% on the validation and testing sets, respectively. Additionally, on the HCRF dataset, the framework achieved high classification accuracy of 99.84% and 99.65% on the validation and testing sets, respectively. The effectiveness and interchangeability of the three channels are further confirmed by ablation and interchangeability experiments, highlighting the remarkable performance of the framework in GC histopathological image classification tasks. This offers an advanced and pragmatic artificial intelligence solution that addresses challenges posed by unique medical image characteristics for intricate image analysis. The proposed approach in artificial intelligence medical engineering demonstrates significant potential for enhancing diagnostic precision by achieving high classification accuracy and treatment outcomes.