Current research on computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) of liver cancer is based on traditional feature engineering methods, which have several drawbacks including redundant features and high computational cost. Recent deep learning models overcome these problems by implicitly capturing intricate structures from large-scale medical image data. However, they are still affected by network hyperparameters and topology. Hence, the state of the art in this area can be further optimized by integrating bio-inspired concepts into deep learning models. This work proposes a novel bio-inspired deep learning approach for optimizing predictive results of liver cancer. This approach contributes to the literature in two ways. Firstly, a novel hybrid segmentation algorithm is proposed to extract liver lesions from computed tomography (CT) images using SegNet network, UNet network, and artificial bee colony optimization (ABC), namely, SegNet-UNet-ABC. This algorithm uses the SegNet for separating liver from the abdominal CT scan, then the UNet is used to extract lesions from the liver. In parallel, the ABC algorithm is hybridized with each network to tune its hyperparameters, as they highly affect the segmentation performance. Secondly, a hybrid algorithm of the LeNet-5 model and ABC algorithm, namely, LeNet-5/ABC, is proposed as feature extractor and classifier of liver lesions. The LeNet-5/ABC algorithm uses the ABC to select the optimal topology for constructing the LeNet-5 network, as network structure affects learning time and classification accuracy. For assessing performance of the two proposed algorithms, comparisons have been made to the state-of-the-art algorithms on liver lesion segmentation and classification. The results reveal that the SegNet-UNet-ABC is superior to other compared algorithms regarding Jaccard index, Dice index, correlation coefficient, and convergence time. Moreover, the LeNet-5/ABC algorithm outperforms other algorithms regarding specificity, F1-score, accuracy, and computational time.
