Genetic Algorithm-Based Feature Selection for Accurate Breast Cancer Classification

Breast cancer is a significant global healthcare challenge, particularly in developing and underdeveloped countries, with profound physical, emotional, and psychological consequences, including mortality. Timely diagnosis and accurate treatment are crucial in addressing this issue. We propose the utilization of a feature selection technique to identify the most relevant features from among all features for breast cancer diagnosis, and show that Genetic Algorithms are impressive for this task. The study compares the results of GA with no selection and an alternative method, Principle Component Analysis (PCA). Three machine learning models, all based on supervised learning with data split into training and test data, are employed for binary classification using the selected feature subset. The evaluation metrics employed encompass accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. Among the selected models, Random Forest demonstrates the most favorable outcomes, achieving an accuracy score of 0.96, precision score of 0.96, recall value of 0.98, and an F1-score of 0.97. These results underscore the effectiveness of GA in feature selection for breast cancer diagnosis. Consequently, the integration of Genetic Algorithms (GA) with Random Forest showcases the superior performance among the evaluated models.