Automatic classification of breast cancer in histopathology images is crucial for accurate diagnosis and effective treatment planning. Recently, classification methods based on the ResNet architecture have gained prominence due to their ability to improve accuracy significantly. This is achieved by employing skip connections to mitigate vanishing gradient issues, enabling the integration of low-level and high-level feature information. However, the conventional ResNet architecture faces challenges such as data imbalance and limited interpretability, which necessitate cross-domain knowledge and collaboration among medical experts. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel method for breast cancer classification: the Dual-Activated Lightweight Attention ResNet50 (DALAResNet50) model. This model integrates a pre-trained ResNet50 architecture with a lightweight attention mechanism, embedding an attention module in the fourth layer of ResNet50, and incorporates two fully connected layers with LeakyReLU and ReLU activation functions to enhance feature learning capabilities. Extensive experiments conducted on the BreakHis, BACH, and Mini-DDSM datasets demonstrate that DALAResNet50 outperforms state-of-the-art models in accuracy, F1 score, IBA, and GMean, particularly excelling in classification tasks involving imbalanced datasets. Furthermore, the proposed Dynamic Threshold Grad-CAM (DT Grad-CAM) method provides clearer and more focused visualizations, enhancing interpretability and assisting medical experts in identifying key features.

Accurate classification of breast cancer histopathology images is critical for early diagnosis and treatment planning. Yet, conventional deep learning models face significant challenges under limited annotation scenarios due to their reliance on large-scale labeled datasets. To address this, we propose Dynamic Cross-Scale Swin Transformer (DCS-ST), a robust and efficient framework tailored for histopathology image classification with scarce annotations. Specifically, DCS-ST integrates a dynamic window predictor and a cross-scale attention module to enhance multi-scale feature representation and interaction while employing a semi-supervised learning strategy based on pseudo-labeling and denoising to exploit unlabeled data effectively. This design enables the model to adaptively attend to diverse tissue structures and pathological patterns while maintaining classification stability. Extensive experiments on three public datasets—BreakHis, Mini-DDSM, and ICIAR2018—demonstrate that DCS-ST consistently outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods across various magnifications and classification tasks, achieving superior quantitative results and reliable visual classification. Furthermore, empirical evaluations validate its strong generalization capability and practical potential for real-world weakly-supervised medical image analysis.

Accurate classification of breast cancer histopathology images is essential for early diagnosis and effective clinical management. However, conventional deep learning models often exhibit performance degradation under limited labeled data and lack interpretability, which restricts their clinical applicability. To address these challenges, we propose GAFR-Net, a robust and interpretable Graph Attention and Fuzzy-Rule Network designed for histopathology image classification under scarce supervision (defined here as less than 10% labeled data). GAFR-Net constructs a similarity-driven graph to model inter-sample relationships and employs a multi-head graph attention mechanism to capture complex relational representations among heterogeneous tissue structures. Meanwhile, a differentiable fuzzy-rule module integrates intrinsic topological descriptors—such as node degree, clustering coefficient, and label consistency—into explicit and human-readable diagnostic rules. This architecture establishes transparent IF–THEN inference mappings that emulate the heuristic reasoning process of clinical experts, thereby enhancing model interpretability without relying on post-hoc explanation techniques. Extensive experiments conducted on three public benchmark datasets—BreakHis, Mini-DDSM, and ICIAR2018—demonstrate that GAFR-Net consistently surpasses state-of-the-art methods across multiple magnifications and classification settings. These results highlight the strong generalization capability and practical potential of GAFR-Net as a trustworthy decision-support framework for weakly supervised medical image analysis.

Deep learning methods have shown promise in classifying breast cancer histopathology images, but their performance often declines with limited annotated data, a critical challenge in medical imaging due to the high cost and expertise required for annotations.

Accurate classification of breast cancer histopathology images is pivotal for early oncological diagnosis and therapeutic intervention.However, conventional deep learning architectures often encounter performance degradation under limited annotations and suffer from a "blackbox" nature, hindering their clinical integration. To mitigate these limitations, we propose GAFRNet, a robust and interpretable Graph Attention and FuzzyRule Network specifically engineered for histopathology image classification with scarce supervision. GAFRNet constructs a similarity-driven graph representation to model intersample relationships and employs a multihead graph attention mechanism to capture complex relational features across heterogeneous tissue structures.Concurrently, a differentiable fuzzy-rule module encodes intrinsic topological descriptorsincluding node degree, clustering coefficient, and label consistencyinto explicit, human-understandable diagnostic logic. This design establishes transparent "IF-THEN" mappings that mimic the heuristic deduction process of medical experts, providing clear reasoning behind each prediction without relying on post-hoc attribution methods. Extensive evaluations on three benchmark datasets (BreakHis, Mini-DDSM, and ICIAR2018) demonstrate that GAFR-Net consistently outperforms various state-of-the-art methods across multiple magnifications and classification tasks. These results validate the superior generalization and practical utility of GAFR-Net as a reliable decision-support tool for weakly supervised medical image analysis.