Machine learning for classification of cutaneous sebaceous neoplasms: implementing decision tree model using cytological and architectural features

Abstract

Background This observational study aims to describe and compare histopathological, architectural, and nuclear characteristics of sebaceous lesions and utilized these characteristics to develop a predictive classification approach using machine learning algorithms. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted on Iranian patients with sebaceous tumors from two hospitals between March 2015 and March 2019. Pathology slides were reviewed by two pathologists and the architectural and cytological attributes were recorded. Multiple decision tree models were trained using 5-fold cross validation to determine the most important predictor variables and to develop a simple prediction model. Results This study assessed the characteristics of 123 sebaceous tumors. Histopathological findings, including pagetoid appearance, neurovascular invasion, atypical mitosis, extensive necrotic area, poor cell differentiation, and non-lobular tumor growth pattern, as well as nuclear features, including highly irregular nuclear contour, and large nuclear size were exclusively observed in carcinomatous tumors. Among non-carcinomatous lesions, some sebaceoma and sebaceous adenoma cases had features like high mitotic activity, which can be misleading and complicate diagnosis. Based on multiple decision tree models, the five most critical variables for lesion categorization were identified as: basaloid cell count, peripheral basaloid cell layers, tumor margin, nuclear size, and chromatin. Conclusions This study implemented a machine learning modeling approach to help optimally categorize sebaceous lesions based on architectural and nuclear features. However, studies of larger sample sizes are needed to ensure the accuracy of our suggested predictive model.