Improving Computer-Aided Medical Diagnosis Using Generative Adversarial Networks for Carotid Artery Ultrasound Image Data Augmentation and Classification

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are a leading cause of death globally, making early detection of atherosclerosis critical for prevention. Carotid artery ultrasound imaging is a common diagnostic tool; however, the limited availability of labelled medical images hinders the training of deep learning models. This study examines generative adversarial networks (GANs) for data augmentation and classification of carotid artery Doppler images to improve computer-aided medical diagnosis. Four convolutional neural networks (CNNs) – AlexNet, VGGNet, GoogleNet, and CifarNet – are evaluated for their classification performance on original and extended datasets. AlexNet outperforms the other models, achieving a classification accuracy of 94.18% on the extended dataset. The GAN implementation for data augmentation and overfitting reduction demonstrates the potential of generative models in enhancing the performance of deep learning models in medical image analysis, particularly in the "common artery carotid" class. This research contributes to understanding GANs as a valuable tool for data augmentation and classification in the context of carotid artery ultrasound images.