Transformer-Based Explainable Deep Learning for Breast Cancer Detection in Mammography: The MammoFormer Framework

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Peter, Ojonugwa Oluwafemi Ejiga, Emakporuena, Daniel, Tunde, Bamidele Dayo, Abdulkarim, Maryam, Umar, Abdullahi Bn
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908482262794240
author Peter, Ojonugwa Oluwafemi Ejiga
Emakporuena, Daniel
Tunde, Bamidele Dayo
Abdulkarim, Maryam
Umar, Abdullahi Bn
author_facet Peter, Ojonugwa Oluwafemi Ejiga
Emakporuena, Daniel
Tunde, Bamidele Dayo
Abdulkarim, Maryam
Umar, Abdullahi Bn
contents Breast cancer detection through mammography interpretation remains difficult because of the minimal nature of abnormalities that experts need to identify alongside the variable interpretations between readers. The potential of CNNs for medical image analysis faces two limitations: they fail to process both local information and wide contextual data adequately, and do not provide explainable AI (XAI) operations that doctors need to accept them in clinics. The researcher developed the MammoFormer framework, which unites transformer-based architecture with multi-feature enhancement components and XAI functionalities within one framework. Seven different architectures consisting of CNNs, Vision Transformer, Swin Transformer, and ConvNext were tested alongside four enhancement techniques, including original images, negative transformation, adaptive histogram equalization, and histogram of oriented gradients. The MammoFormer framework addresses critical clinical adoption barriers of AI mammography systems through: (1) systematic optimization of transformer architectures via architecture-specific feature enhancement, achieving up to 13% performance improvement, (2) comprehensive explainable AI integration providing multi-perspective diagnostic interpretability, and (3) a clinically deployable ensemble system combining CNN reliability with transformer global context modeling. The combination of transformer models with suitable feature enhancements enables them to achieve equal or better results than CNN approaches. ViT achieves 98.3% accuracy alongside AHE while Swin Transformer gains a 13.0% advantage through HOG enhancements
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_06137
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Transformer-Based Explainable Deep Learning for Breast Cancer Detection in Mammography: The MammoFormer Framework
Peter, Ojonugwa Oluwafemi Ejiga
Emakporuena, Daniel
Tunde, Bamidele Dayo
Abdulkarim, Maryam
Umar, Abdullahi Bn
Image and Video Processing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Breast cancer detection through mammography interpretation remains difficult because of the minimal nature of abnormalities that experts need to identify alongside the variable interpretations between readers. The potential of CNNs for medical image analysis faces two limitations: they fail to process both local information and wide contextual data adequately, and do not provide explainable AI (XAI) operations that doctors need to accept them in clinics. The researcher developed the MammoFormer framework, which unites transformer-based architecture with multi-feature enhancement components and XAI functionalities within one framework. Seven different architectures consisting of CNNs, Vision Transformer, Swin Transformer, and ConvNext were tested alongside four enhancement techniques, including original images, negative transformation, adaptive histogram equalization, and histogram of oriented gradients. The MammoFormer framework addresses critical clinical adoption barriers of AI mammography systems through: (1) systematic optimization of transformer architectures via architecture-specific feature enhancement, achieving up to 13% performance improvement, (2) comprehensive explainable AI integration providing multi-perspective diagnostic interpretability, and (3) a clinically deployable ensemble system combining CNN reliability with transformer global context modeling. The combination of transformer models with suitable feature enhancements enables them to achieve equal or better results than CNN approaches. ViT achieves 98.3% accuracy alongside AHE while Swin Transformer gains a 13.0% advantage through HOG enhancements
title Transformer-Based Explainable Deep Learning for Breast Cancer Detection in Mammography: The MammoFormer Framework
topic Image and Video Processing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.06137