8 research outputs found
Teledermoscopy in the Diagnosis of Melanocytic and Non-Melanocytic Skin Lesions: NurugoTM Derma Smartphone Microscope as a Possible New Tool in Daily Clinical Practice
Background: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teledermoscopy has been increasingly
used in the remote diagnosis of skin cancers. In a study conducted in 2020, we demonstrated a
potential role of an inexpensive device (NurugoTM Derma) as a first triage to select the skin lesions
that require a face-to-face consultation with dermatologists. Herein, we report the results of a
novel study that aimed to better investigate the performance of NurugoTM. Objectives: (i) verify
whether the NurugoTM can be a communication tool between the general practitioner (GP) and
dermatologist in the first assessment of skin lesions, (ii) analyze the degree of diagnostic–therapeutic
agreement between dermatologists, (iii) estimate the number of potentially serious diagnostic errors.
Methods: One hundred and forty-four images of skin lesions were collected at the Dermatology
Outpatient Clinic in Novara using a conventional dermatoscope (instrument F), the NurugoTM
(instrument N), and the latter with the interposition of a laboratory slide (instrument V). The images
were evaluated in-blind by four dermatologists, and each was asked to make a diagnosis and to
specify a possible treatment. Results: Our data show that F gave higher agreement values for all
dermatologists, concerning the real clinical diagnosis. Nevertheless, a medium/moderate agreement
value was obtained also for N and V instruments and that can be considered encouraging and indicate
that all examined tools can potentially be used for the first screening of skin lesions. The total amount
of misclassified lesions was limited (especially with the V tool), with up to nine malignant lesions
wrongly classified as benign. Conclusions: NurugoTM, with adequate training, can be used to build
a specific support network between GP and dermatologist or between dermatologists. Furthermore,
its use could be extended to the diagnosis and follow-up of other skin diseases, especially for frail
patients in emergencies, such as the current pandemic context
DermoCC-GAN: a new approach for standardizing dermatological images using generative adversarial networks
Dermatological images are typically diagnosed based on visual analysis of the skin lesion acquired using a dermoscope. However, the final quality of the acquired image is highly dependent on the illumination conditions during the acquisition phase. This variability in the light source can affect the dermatologist's diagnosis and decrease the accuracy of computer-aided diagnosis systems. Color constancy algorithms have proven to be a powerful tool to address this issue by allowing the standardization of the image illumination source, but the most commonly used algorithms still present some inherent limitations due to assumptions made on the original image. In this work, we propose a novel Dermatological Color Constancy Generative Adversarial Network (DermoCC-GAN) algorithm to overcome the current limitations by formulating the color constancy task as an image-to-image translation problem
DermoCC-GAN: A new approach for standardizing dermatological images using generative adversarial networks
Dermatological images are typically diagnosed based on visual analysis of the skin lesion acquired using a dermoscope. However, the final quality of the acquired image is highly dependent on the illumination conditions during the acquisition phase. This variability in the light source can affect the dermatologist's diagnosis and decrease the accuracy of computer-aided diagnosis systems. Color constancy algorithms have proven to be a powerful tool to address this issue by allowing the standardization of the image illumination source, but the most commonly used algorithms still present some inherent limitations due to assumptions made on the original image. In this work, we propose a novel Dermatological Color Constancy Generative Adversarial Network (DermoCC-GAN) algorithm to overcome the current limitations by formulating the color constancy task as an image-to-image translation problem
The Role in Teledermoscopy of an Inexpensive and Easy-to-Use Smartphone Device for the Classification of Three Types of Skin Lesions Using Convolutional Neural Networks
BACKGROUND: The use of teledermatology has spread over the last years, especially during the recent SARS-Cov-2 pandemic. Teledermoscopy, an extension of teledermatology, consists of consulting dermoscopic images, also transmitted through smartphones, to remotely diagnose skin tumors or other dermatological diseases. The purpose of this work was to verify the diagnostic validity of images acquired with an inexpensive smartphone microscope (NurugoTM), employing convolutional neural networks (CNN) to classify malignant melanoma (MM), melanocytic nevus (MN), and seborrheic keratosis (SK).METHODS: The CNN, trained with 600 dermatoscopic images from the ISIC (International Skin Imaging Collaboration) archive, was tested on three test sets: ISIC images, images acquired with the NurugoTM, and images acquired with a conventional dermatoscope.RESULTS: The results obtained, although with some limitations due to the smartphone device and small data set, were encouraging, showing comparable results to the clinical dermatoscope and up to 80% accuracy (out of 10 images, two were misclassified) using the NurugoTM demonstrating how an amateur device can be used with reasonable levels of diagnostic accuracy.CONCLUSION: Considering the low cost and the ease of use, the NurugoTM device could be a useful tool for general practitioners (GPs) to perform the first triage of skin lesions, aiding the selection of lesions that require a face-to-face consultation with dermatologists
Impact of artificial intelligence‐based color constancy on dermoscopical assessment of skin lesions: A comparative study
Background
The quality of dermoscopic images is affected by lighting conditions, operator experience, and device calibration. Color constancy algorithms reduce this variability by making images appear as if they were acquired under the same conditions, allowing artificial intelligence (AI)-based methods to achieve better results. The impact of color constancy algorithms has not yet been evaluated from a clinical dermatologist's workflow point of view. Here we propose an in-depth investigation of the impact of an AI-based color constancy algorithm, called DermoCC-GAN, on the skin lesion diagnostic routine.
Methods
Three dermatologists, with different experience levels, carried out two assignments. The clinical experts evaluated key parameters such as perceived image quality, lesion diagnosis, and diagnosis confidence.
Results
When the DermoCC-GAN color constancy algorithm was applied, the dermoscopic images were perceived to be of better quality overall. An increase in classification performance was observed, reaching a maximum accuracy of 74.67% for a six-class classification task. Finally, the use of normalized images results in an increase in the level of self-confidence in the qualitative diagnostic routine.
Conclusions
From the conducted analysis, it is evident that the impact of AI-based color constancy algorithms, such as DermoCC-GAN, is positive and brings qualitative benefits to the clinical practitioner