Pap Smear Medical Image Classification Using Deep Learning: A Systematic Review

Cervical cancer has been known as one of the most prevalent medical disorders globally and a leading cause of death. Early detection, particularly through Pap tests, plays a vital role in its prevention. Previous studies have leveraged machine learning and deep learning techniques to classify the medical images obtained from Pap tests. In this study, a Systematic Literature Review methodology was used to examine 15 relevant papers that have been filtered from queries to Google Scholar which have gone through 4 stages of filtering that include: identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion. This study addresses two research questions regarding the datasets and deep learning techniques for classifying pap smear images in recent years. The performance of the models was analyzed and potential areas for improvements are suggested. The findings of this study reveal that the Herlev University Hospital and SIPaKMed datasets are the most used. The methodologies used by researchers range from machine learning techniques, transfer learning using Convolutional Neural Networks, and utilize state-of-the-art models with novel optimizing methodology. While there are exciting opportunities in the field, challenges include model generalization and interpretability.