Abstract
Skin cancer is a critical global health issue, with millions of non-melanoma and melanoma cases diagnosed annually. Early detection is essential to improving patient outcomes, yet traditional deep learning models for skin cancer classification are often limited by the need for large, annotated datasets and extensive computational resources. The aim of this study is to address these limitations by proposing an efficient skin cancer classification framework that integrates active learning (AL) with particle swarm optimization (PSO). The AL framework selectively identifies the most informative unlabeled instances for expert annotation, minimizing labeling costs while optimizing classifier performance. PSO, a nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm, enhances the selection process within AL, ensuring the most relevant data points are chosen. This method was applied to train multiple Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models on the HAM10000 skin lesion dataset. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed AL-PSO approach significantly improves classification accuracy, with the Least Confidence strategy achieving approximately 89.4% accuracy while using only 40% of the labeled training data. This represents a substantial improvement over traditional approaches in terms of both accuracy and efficiency. The findings indicate that the integration of AL and PSO can accelerate the adoption of AI in clinical settings for skin cancer detection. The code for this study is publicly available at ( https://github.com/Sayantani-31/AL-PSO ).