See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/350794169

Computer Aided Diagnosis of Thyroid Disease Using Machine Learning

Algorithms

Conference Paper · April 2021

DOI: 10.1109/ICECE51571.2020.9393054

CITATIONS READS

0 74

7 authors, including:

Md. Asfi -Ar-Raihan Asif Mirza Muntasir Nishat

Islamic University of Technology Islamic University of Technology
3 PUBLICATIONS   0 CITATIONS    20 PUBLICATIONS   49 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Fahim Faisal Md. Fahim Shikder

Islamic University of Technology Islamic University of Technology
21 PUBLICATIONS   42 CITATIONS    3 PUBLICATIONS   0 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

DC motor braking system View project

Analysis and Design of Optimized Controller for Power Converters by Nonlinear Optimization Techniques View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Mirza Muntasir Nishat on 11 April 2021.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

2020 11th International Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (ICECE)

Computer Aided Diagnosis of Thyroid Disease

Using Machine Learning Algorithms
Md. Asfi-Ar-Raihan Asif , Mirza Muntasir Nishat, Fahim Faisal, Md. Fahim Shikder, Mahmudul Hasan Udoy,
Rezuanur Rahman Dip and Ragib Ahsan
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Islamic University of Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: raihanasif@iut-dhaka.edu, mirzamuntasir@iut-dhaka.edu, faisaleee@iut-dhaka.edu, fahimshikder@iut-dhaka.edu,
mahmudul81@iut-dhaka.edu, rezuanurrahman@iut-dhaka.edu, ragibahsan@iut-dhaka.edu

Abstract— This paper presents a comprehensive study of
investigating the performance of different machine learning
algorithms in the diagnosis of thyroid disease. Detecting thyroid
disease at an early stage is a task of utmost significance because
fatal thyroid diseases like thyroid cancer can be fully cured with
proper treatment. Therefore, machine learning (ML) has made
its way up to be a reliable component to predict thyroid diseases.
A dataset from the University of California, Irvine (UCI)
repository has been trained and tested to build the model
classifier. Several classifying machine learning algorithms were
implemented on the dataset and their corresponding confusion
matrices were presented. Subsequently, a detailed comparative
analysis was carried out in terms of accuracy, precision,
sensitivity, F1 score, ROC-AUC which provided conclusive
evidence that Multilayer Perceptron (MLPC) was the most
proficient algorithm among these algorithms with an accuracy
of 99.70% after hyperparameter optimization.
Keywords— Machine learning, Thyroid disease, UCI dataset,
Hyperparameter optimization.
I. INTRODUCTION
Thyroid, a small gland located in the anterior part of the
neck, just beneath Adam’s apple and enclosed around the
trachea is in charge of some of the vital functions of the
human body which are creating and secreting hormones that
control crucial anatomic functions like metabolism and
protein synthesis. Metabolism rate is predominantly
governed by two active thyroid hormones named T4
(thyroxine) and T3 (triiodothyronine) which command the
body cells of the amount of energy to be exerted [1].
However, thyroid disease is a dire phenomenon of body
functionality when the thyroid gland fails to produce the right
amount of thyroid hormones. The most common thyroid
diseases are hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, thyroiditis,
and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, all occur due to the abnormal
emission of thyroid hormones [2]. As the symptoms are very
similar to other medical conditions, the diagnosis of thyroid
disease takes much longer before it reaches a critical stage
[3].
Thyroid disease detection is often an arduous task because
it presents a set of symptoms that overlap with some other
medical conditions as well. For example, hyperthyroidism
appears with symptoms like weight loss, muscle weakness,
experiencing anxiety, irritation and nervousness, insomnia
while hypothyroidism reveals symptoms like weight gain,
fatigue, experiencing forgetfulness, intolerance to low
temperatures, etc. [4]. Conventionally, detection of thyroid
disease is carried out by performing blood tests, imaging
tests, and physical exams. Additional blood tests like
calcitonin, thyroglobulin tests are conducted to identify
thyroid cancer. In recent times, machine learning (ML)
appears as a handy diagnostic tool to identify different
thyroid diseases and their progressed stages with good
accuracy [5]. Many researchers worked with various
algorithms to predict thyroid disease proficiently. Qiao et al.
proposed a classification model based on the Random Forest
(RF) algorithm using principal component analysis,
achieving 95.63% accuracy to diagnose the thyroid disease
[6]. Priyanka et al. applied their dataset to the Support Vector
Machine (SVM) alongside the Recursive Feature Elimination
(RFE), gaining an accuracy of 92.92% in detecting the
thyroid disease [7]. On the other hand, Gyanendra et al.
found an accuracy of 96.87% using the KNN algorithm to
detect thyroid disease [8]. So, proper execution of these
algorithms can substantially rectify human-made errors and
work as a deputy to medical professionals to make credible
decisions [9].
In this paper, we have implemented several ML
algorithms like K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Support Vector
Machine (SVM), AdaBoost (AdB), XGBoost (XGB),
Gaussian Process Classifier (GPC), Gradient Boosting
Classifier (GBC), Multiplier Perceptron Classifier (MLPC) in
UCI thyroid disease dataset and observed the performance of
the models. In Section II, data preprocessing is presented and
the study of the ML algorithms is briefly stated in Section III.
Hence, the results of the simulations were executed in Section
IV. At last, the conclusion is demonstrated in section V with
a promising outcome to detect thyroid disease effectively.
II. DATA PREPROCESSING
Data preprocessing is one of the fundamental steps in
machine learning where feature scaling is an integral part of
it. There are many popular methods in feature scaling like
Min-Max scaling, Standardization (Variance Scaling),
Normalization, etc. The information of the attributes from the
dataset is tabulated in Table I [10].
TABLE I. ATTRIBUTE INFORMATION
Attribute Elaboration Domain
TSH Thyroid Stimulating Hormone 0.4 to 5.0 milli-IU
T3 Triiodothyronine 100 to 200 ng/dL
TT4 Total T4 (Thyroxine) 4.6 to 12 mg/dL
T4U T4 uptake 0.7 to 1.9 ng/dL
FTI Free T4 Index 4-11 ng/dL

978-0-7381-1102-5/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE


The UCI dataset contains 3164 instances with 25
attributes. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) was performed
and it is found that there were some data outliers in the
distribution. In case of outliers, a general scaling technique
like standard scaling, min-max scaling does not work well.
So, robust scaling performs better whenever there are outliers
in data and also improves classification accuracies in the case
of biomedical data [11].
Fig. 1 Correlation heatmap
A correlation heat map was plotted to investigate salient
features from the dataset (Fig. 1). Data were split into training
and testing sets which were 80% & 20% of total data
respectively as this ratio displays low bias & low variance
depending on the decision tree stump. For each of the weak
iteration h ( xt ) after i − iterations final classifier is,
Ei =  E [ Fi −1 ( xt ) + α i h ( xt )]
Here, αi is the assigned coefficient.
D. XGBoost (XGB):
To push the limit of computations for boosted algorithms,
Tianqi Chen developed XGBoost, also known as extreme
gradient boosting based on the principles of gradient boosting
[15]. It predicts model in ensemble form of a weak predicted
model, classically decision tree. The model generally is an
optimization of an arbitrary differentiable loss function.
E. Gaussian Processes Classifier(GPC):
Gaussian Processes Classifier (GPC) has emerged as one
of the powerful tools in machine learning which predicts the
data by incorporating prior knowledge. Its main application
is fitting a function to the data. For every point in the dataset,
there are many functions to fit the dataset; the Gaussian
process assigns a probability to each of these functions [16].
The probability density function of a Gaussian random
variable is stated below,
1 T
 −1 ( x − µ ))
P ( x; µ , ) = d
e −0.5(( x − µ )
(2π ) |  | 2

compared to the other ratios.
III. STUDY OF ALGORITHMS
To predict thyroid disease, observing the performance of
different ML algorithms is the prime objective of this work.
Following that, all the algorithms studied in this work are
briefly explained below:
A. K-Nearest Neighbor(KNN):
KNN is a basic algorithm for machine learning which
predicts the data based on the nearest neighbors [12]. The
algorithm runs based on the Euclidean distance function
, which is depicted below:
d ( xi , yi ) = ( xi ,1 − yi ,1 ) 2 + ....... + ( xi , m − yi ,m ) 2
Here, µ resembles the mean,  depicts the covariance
matrix, and |  | is the determinant of  .
F. Gradient Boosting Classifier(GBC):
Gradient Boosting (GB) refers to a boosting method that
converts weak learners into strong learners, and here it is
gradient descent. It combines the best possible model with the
previous model with a target to minimize the error for the
next model. Let’s write the loss function is, where yi is the
target value and y ip is the prediction [17],
LMSE =  ( yi − yip ) 2
The predicted value after using gradient boosting is,
yip = yip − α * 2 *  ( yi − yip )

B. Support Vector Machine(SVM): Here, α is the learning rate and  (y i − yip ) is the sum of
residuals.
Being a popular supervised machine learning algorithm,
SVM can be used both for classification and regression G. Multiplier Perceptron Classifier (MLPC):
challenges. The objective of SVM is to find a hyperplane with The perceptron is simply a binary classification related to
a maximum margin in an X-dimensional space (X being the the human neural network. A multiplier perceptron is a stack
number of features) that separately classifies the data points. of several perceptron in many layers, just like a human
The loss function is known as ‘Hinge loss’ assists to neuron [18]. The first layer sends signals to all the perceptron
maximize the margin. Hinge loss function can be written as and so on to the final layer. The perceptron uses several
following [13], weights to carry the signal. For a final layer output, the error
is backpropagated to the previous layers. The final layer
 0 if y * f ( x) ≥ 1 output is,
c( x, y, f ( x)) = 
1 − y * f ( x) else
 n

C. AdaBoost(AdB): 1

if w *x
i =1
i i −θ ≥ 0
AdaBoost is also a boosting algorithm that makes a robust
y= n
0
classifier by combining several weak-leaner classifiers [14].

if w *x i i −θ < 0
It assigns different weight coefficients to the classifiers i =1
 IV. RESULTS & ANALYSIS Therefore, ‘random search’ was chosen in our proposed
After studying the ML algorithms, the dataset was applied model for hyperparameter optimization.
for building the models and predicting thyroid disease After the optimization of the hyperparameters with our
accurately. Hence all the confusion matrices are tabulated in proposed method, the machine learning models were trained
Table II so that further analysis can be portrayed. Different to keep the bias as less as possible. So there was no chance of
performance parameters like accuracy, precision, sensitivity, overfitting. Then they were tested with cross-validation so
specificity, F1 score, and ROC-AUC were calculated for both that there is no chance of data leakage keeping the variance
default hyperparameter (DHP) and hyperparameter as less as possible. Thus, Multilayer Perceptron (MLPC) gave
optimization (HPO) with random search method. In case of the best accuracy of 99.70% among all the classifiers. After
default hyperparameter (DHP), Multilayer Perceptron hyperparameter optimization, four hidden layers of neural
(MLPC) classifier showcased the best accuracy (87.12%). network having 1000 neurons each, was found to be most
Here, by default, a hidden layer of neural networks having appropriate for the classifier. However, ReLu was used as the
100 neurons with ReLu activation function was used where activation function where 0.0005 & 0.001 were used as L2
0.0001 & 0.001 were taken as L2 regularization parameters regularization parameters and learning rate respectively.
and learning rate respectively. However, other nearly However, GBC (98.26%), AdB (97.62%) & XGB (96.20%)
performed classifiers for DHP were AdB (86.33%), SVM executed promising results in terms of accuracy and also
(85.74%) and GPC (84.79%). The confusion matrices for all other performance matrices. For all other performance
the classifiers are tabulated in Table II. parameters like precision, sensitivity, specificity, F1 score,
and ROC-AUC, hyperparameter optimization (HPO)
TABLE II. CONFUSION MATRICES FOR ALL CLASSIFIERS
outperforms the default hyperparameter (DHP) technique.
Confusion Matrix Predicted Thus, Table III and Table IV present the outcomes for both
(KNN) True False default hyperparameter (DHP) and hyperparameter
True 41 28 optimization (HPO). Furthermore, Receiving Operator
Actual
False 14 548
Characteristics (ROC) curves for each machine learning
Confusion Matrix Predicted algorithms were plotted in Fig. 2.
(SVM) True False
True 54 15
Actual
False 12 550

Confusion Matrix Predicted

(AdB) True False
True 67 9
Actual
False 6 549

Confusion Matrix Predicted

(XGB) True False
True 56 13
Actual
False 14 548

Confusion Matrix Predicted

(GPC) True False
Actual True 52 17
False 11 551
Fig. 2 ROC curve for all the models
Confusion Matrix Predicted
ROC curve illustrates the performances of classifiers
(GBC) True False
True 68 5 where all the classification thresholds are taken into account
Actual and the tradeoff between True Positive Rate (TPR) and False
False 6 552
Positive Rate (FPR) are plotted. The area under the curve of
Confusion Matrix Predicted ROC signifies the strength of classifiers which one is nearer
(MLPC) True False to one has the capability of segmenting the class labels than
True 81 1
Actual
False 1 548
other classifiers. It is evident from Table IV that, MLPC
presents better results among all the algorithms in terms of
Hyperparameter optimization (HPO) improves the precision (0.9878), sensitivity (0.9878), specificity (0.9982),
performance of machine learning algorithms. In automated F1 score (0.9878), and ROC-AUC (0.957). However,
machine learning, there are two popular optimization Gradient Boosting Classifier (GBC) appears as the second-
methods which are ‘grid search’ and ‘random search’. Grid best performing classifier among all. In this case, the
Search has a high dimensionality problem when there is a lot algorithm displays precision, sensitivity, specificity, F1
of data. Besides increasing the resolution of discretization score, and ROC-AUC to be 0.9315, 0.9189, 0.9910, 0.9826,
increases the number of function evaluations which increases and 0.956 correspondingly. After GBC, AdaBoost (AdB)
the computational time a lot. So implementing any machine emerges as the next classifier with good results. Here,
learning model practically using ‘grid search’ is inefficient precision, sensitivity, specificity, F1 score, and ROC-AUC
from an economic point of view [19]. Whenever any model are 0.9178, 0.8816, 0.9892, 0.8993, and 0.950 successively.
is proposed for practical purposes particularly in medical Thus, this investigation reports that MLPC, GBC, and AdB
diagnosis cases, it should be efficient as well as economic. perform better than all other mentioned algorithms.
 TABLE III. PERFORMANCE MATRICES OF ML ALGORITHMS USING DEFAULT HYPER PARAMETER (DHP)

ML Algorithms Accuracy (%) Precision Sensitivity Specificity F1 Score ROC-AUC

KNN 79.00 0.3494 0.2762 0.8971 0.3085 0.801
SVM 85.74 0.4675 0.4235 0.9249 0.4400 0.823
AdB 86.33 0.4810 0.4578 0.9249 0.4691 0.833
XGB 83.00 0.3736 0.3953 0.8973 0.3842 0.805
GPC 84.79 0.4198 0.4146 0.9142 0.4146 0.811
GBC 83.65 0.4096 0.3864 0.9096 0.3908 0.806
MLPC 87.12 0.5135 0.4578 0.9341 0.4841 0.891

TABLE IV. PERFORMANCE MATRICES OF ML ALGORITHMS USING HYPER PARAMETER OPTIMIZATION (HPO)

ML Algorithms Accuracy (%) Precision Sensitivity Specificity F1 Score ROC-AUC

KNN 93.34 0.5942 0.7455 0.9514 0.6613 0.8916
SVM 96.00 0.7826 0.8182 0.9735 0.80 0.921
AdB 97.62 0.9178 0.8816 0.9892 0.8993 0.950
XGB 96.20 0.8429 0.8194 0.9803 0.8310 0.921
GPC 95.56 0.7536 0.8254 0.9701 0.7879 0.943
GBC 98.26 0.9315 0.9189 0.9910 0.9826 0.956
MLPC 99.70 0.9878 0.9878 0.9982 0.9878 0.957

V. CONCLUSION
Thyroid being an essential part of the human body
produces several hormones that serve multifarious vital tasks
in the human body. So thyroid disease threatens the human
body in all physiological systems like the endocrine system,
cardiovascular system, nervous system, respiratory system,
digestive system, muscular system, and reproductive system.
Heart failure, falling into unconsciousness and mental
disorders are common occurrences and can cause death in
many cases. Consequently, early detection & accurate
clinical diagnosis of thyroid diseases can keep the
physiological systems of the human body balanced and can
save many lives. In this research, we conducted an efficient
data preprocessing technique and investigated several
machine learning algorithms for early prediction of thyroid
disease and proposed Multilayer Perceptron (MLPC) which
imparted the highest accuracy of 99.70%. Therefore, it can be
implemented practically and so it can aid medical
professionals in early diagnosis of thyroid disease. Thus our
proposed model can contribute to combat against thyroid
disease and ensure the welfare of the human being.
REFERENCES
[1] Molina, Patricia E. Endocrine physiology. Edited by McGraw-Hill
Education. New York: Lange Medical Books/McGraw-Hill, 2006.
[2] Silva de Morais, Nathalie, Jessica Stuart, Haixia Guan, Zhihong Wang,
Edmund S. Cibas, Mary C. Frates, Carol B. Benson et al. "The impact
of Hashimoto thyroiditis on thyroid nodule cytology and risk of thyroid
cancer." Journal of the Endocrine Society 3, no. 4 (2019): 791-800.
[3] Gyuricsko, Eric. "The “slightly” abnormal thyroid test: What is the
pediatrician to do?" Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent
Health Care (2020): 100770.
[4] Boelaert K, Visser WE, Taylor PN, Moran C, Léger J, Persani L.
Management of hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. Endocrinology.
2020; 183:G33-9.
[5] Razia, Shaik, P. Siva Kumar, and A. Srinivasa Rao. "Machine learning
techniques for Thyroid disease diagnosis: A systematic review."
In Modern Approaches in Machine Learning and Cognitive Science: A
Walkthrough, pp. 203-212. Springer, Cham, 2020.
[6] Pan, Qiao, et al."Improved ensemble classification method of thyroid
disease based on random forest."2016 8th International Conference on
Information Technology in Medicine and Education (ITME).IEEE,
2016.
[7] Duggal, Priyanka & Shukla, Shipra. (2020). Prediction Of Thyroid
Disorders Using Advanced Machine Learning Techniques. 670-675.
10.1109/Confluence47617.2020.9058102.
[8] Chaubey, Gyanendra & Bisen, Dhananjay & Arjaria, Siddharth &
Yadav, Vibhash. (2020). Thyroid Disease Prediction Using Machine
Learning Approaches. National Academy Science Letters.
10.1007/s40009-020-00979-z.
[9] Nishat, Mirza Muntasir, Fahim Faisal, Rezuanur Rahman Dip, Md.
Fahim Shikder, Ragib Ahsan, Md. Asfi-Ar-Raihan Asif and Mahmudul
Hasan Udoy. “Performance Investigation of Different Boosting
Algorithms in Predicting Chronic Kidney Disease.” In 2nd International
Conference on Sustainable Technologies for Industry 4.0 (STI), 19-20
December 2020, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in press.
[10] Dua, D. and Graff, C. (2019). UCI Machine Learning Repository
[http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/machine-learning-databases/thyroid-
disease/sick-euthyroid.data]. Irvine, CA: University of California,
School of Information and Computer Science.
[11] Quiring, Erwin, David Klein, Daniel Arp, Martin Johns, and Konrad
Rieck. "Adversarial Preprocessing: Understanding and Preventing
Image-Scaling Attacks in Machine Learning." In 29th {USENIX}
Security Symposium ({USENIX} Security 20). 2020.
[12] Li, Wei, Yumin Chen, and Yuping Song. "Boosted K-nearest neighbor
classifiers based on fuzzy granules." Knowledge-Based
Systems (2020): 105606.
[13] Wang, Mingjing, and Huiling Chen. "Chaotic multi-swarm whale
optimizer boosted support vector machine for medical
diagnosis." Applied Soft Computing 88 (2020): 105946.
[14] Fan, Zhao, Fanyu Xu, Cai Li, and Lili Yao. "Application of KPCA and
AdaBoost algorithm in classification of functional magnetic resonance
imaging of Alzheimer’s disease." Neural Computing and
Applications (2020): 1-10.
[15] Abdurrahman, G., and M. Sintawati. "Implementation of xgboost for
classification of parkinson’s disease." In Journal of Physics:
Conference Series, vol. 1538, no. 1, p. 012024. IOP Publishing, 2020.
[16] Desai, Rahul, Pratik Porob, Penjo Rebelo, Damodar Reddy Edla, and
Annushree Bablani. "EEG Data Classification for Mental State
Analysis Using Wavelet Packet Transform and Gaussian Process
Classifier." Wireless Personal Communications (2020): 1-21.
[17] Bahad, Pritika, and Preeti Saxena. "Study of adaboost and gradient
boosting algorithms for predictive analytics." In International
Conference on Intelligent Computing and Smart Communication 2019,
pp. 235-244. Springer, Singapore, 2020.
[18] Pathak, Ketki C., and Swathi S. Kundaram. "Accuracy-Based
Performance Analysis of Alzheimer’s Disease Classification Using
Deep Convolution Neural Network." In Soft Computing: Theories and
Applications, pp. 731-744. Springer, Singapore, 2020.
[19] Géron, Aurélien. Hands-on machine learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras,
and TensorFlow: Concepts, tools, and techniques to build intelligent
systems. O'Reilly Media, 2019.

View publication stats