Feature Selection Method Based on Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation Technique Evaluated on Cancer Genome Data Classification

Cancer classification using high-dimensional genomic data presents significant challenges in feature selection, particularly when dealing with datasets containing tens of thousands of features. This study presents a new application of the Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (SPSA) method for feature selection on large-scale cancer datasets, representing the first investigation of the SPSA-based feature selection technique applied to cancer datasets of this magnitude. Our research extends beyond traditional SPSA applications, which have historically been limited to smaller datasets, by evaluating its effectiveness on datasets containing 35,924 to 44,894 features. Building upon established feature-ranking methodologies, we introduce a comprehensive evaluation framework that examines the impact of varying proportions of top-ranked features (5%, 10%, and 15%) on classification performance. This systematic approach enables the identification of optimal feature subsets most relevant to cancer detection across different selection thresholds. The key contributions of this work include the following: (1) the first application of SPSA-based feature selection to large-scale cancer datasets exceeding 35,000 features, (2) an evaluation methodology examining multiple feature proportion thresholds to optimize classification performance, (3) comprehensive experimental validation through comparison with ten state-of-the-art feature selection and classification methods, and (4) statistical significance testing to quantify the improvements achieved by the SPSA approach over benchmark methods. Our experimental evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of the feature selection and ranking-based SPSA method in handling high-dimensional cancer data, providing insights into optimal feature selection strategies for genomic classification tasks.