Muscat – An Omani researcher at the Sultan Qaboos University has developed an app, based on thermography, deep learning and cloud computing, for early detection of breast cancer.

The project, Self-Detection of Early Breast Cancer Application with Infrared Camera and Deep Learning, led by principal investigator Dr Mohammed Abdullah al Husaini, engineer in the Technical Services Department at SQU, is the recipient of the latest edition of the National Research Award.

Husaini won the award in the Young Researcher’s category in the Information and Communication Technologies field.

“Breast cancer is the most common cause of death among women around the world and it is increasing in the Omani society,” Dr Husaini said. “Therefore, a new tool based on thermography, deep learning and health application on smartphones and cloud computing has been approved for early detection of breast cancer.”

The research team developed a smart app that involves using a DMR-IR database and training a deep learning network for the early detection of breast cancer. The team also designed the application in a graphical user interface and connecting it to the AirDroid application to send thermal images from the smartphone to the cloud and send the results back to the smartphone.

According to Dr Husaini, after repeated experiments, the results of early detection of breast cancer showed high accuracy. The detection accuracy of the system is 99.7 per cent with an error margin of +- 0.18 per cent.

The results also showed the ability of artificial intelligence to detect breast cancer in early stages through artificial networks that the team designed specifically for the purpose, and the ability of small and inexpensive thermal cameras to give reliable results.

Dr Husain is confident that the research project would contribute to community awareness of home self-care and reduce the need for surgical procedures, including amputation, if the disease can be detected in early stages. Use of this app will also mean avoiding use of radiation devices such as x-rays, and create an accurate and reliable database with the concerned health institutions.

“This demonstrated the significance of using thermal camera, deep learning, cloud computing and smartphone health applications for early detection of breast cancer.”

Designing the new artificial intelligence network took nearly a year, Dr Husaini said, adding that all the equipment, research and studies were done at his own expense, which was very high.

On winning the National Research Award 2022 instituted by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Dr Husaini said, “The success that I have achieved makes me proud of my abilities.”
The research team, which included Dr Mohammed al Husaini, Dr Mohamed Hadi Habaebi, Dr Teddy Surya Gunawan and Dr Md Rafiqul Islam, published their paper in MDPI journal.