Skin cancer is a major global health concern and one of the deadliest forms of cancer. Early and accurate detection significantly increases the chances of survival. However, traditional visual inspection methods are time-consuming and prone to errors due to artifacts and noise in dermoscopic images. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an innovative deep learning-based framework that integrates an ensemble of two pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNNs), SqueezeNet and InceptionResNet-V2, combined with an improved Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) for feature selection. The deep features extracted from both models are fused to create a comprehensive feature set, which is then optimized using the proposed enhanced WOA that employs a quadratic decay function for dynamic parameter tuning and an advanced mutation mechanism to prevent premature convergence. The optimized features are fed into machine learning classifiers to achieve robust classification performance. The effectiveness of the framework is evaluated on two benchmark datasets, PH2 and Med-Node, achieving state-of-the-art classification accuracies of 95.48% and 98.59%, respectively. Comparative analysis with existing optimization algorithms and skin cancer classification approaches demonstrates the superiority of the proposed method in terms of accuracy, robustness, and computational efficiency. Our method outperforms the genetic algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and the slime mould algorithm (SMA), as well as deep learning-based skin cancer classification models, which have reported accuracies of 87% to 94% in previous studies. A more effective feature selection methodology improves accuracy and reduces computational overhead while maintaining robust performance. Our enhanced deep learning ensemble and feature selection technique can improve early-stage skin cancer diagnosis, as shown by these data.

Breast Cancer (BC) is still one of the most significant, life-threatening, and prevalent diseases that affects women all around the globe. The early recognition and strategies of effective treatment measures improve the rate of survival among patients significantly, contributing to a critical research area in medical science. This review presents a comprehensive review of recent trends and advancements in the recognition of BC recognition, diagnosis, and treatment. It covers multiple imaging modalities, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), ultrasound, mammography, and histopathology, along with various approaches of Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) that enhance the efficiency of diagnosis and improve accuracy. In particular, in some recent decades, the Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) system gained noteworthy attention for the recognition of affected regions, for the minimization of diagnostic rates, and for assisting radiologists. ML algorithms have robust capabilities for feature extraction and classification, while the DL models, specifically Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), have shown remarkable performance in image-based diagnostic tasks. Moreover, the presented review also discusses some challenges, such as dense breast tissue, noise, and tumor heterogeneity, along with the limitations of the current studies. The review concludes with a compact summary of current trends, research problems, and future directions for the improvement of BC detection.