For the first time, researchers have shown that artificial intelligence known as deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN) is better than experienced dermatologists at detecting skin cancer, a study published in the Annals of Oncology found.
According to a press release, CNN is an artificial neural network “inspired by the biological processes at work when nerve cells (neurons) in the brain are connected to each other and respond to what the eye sees.” The CNN is a fast learner, able to teach itself after seeing images and improving its performance based on what it has learned. This process is called machine learning.
Professor Holger Haenssle, author of the study and senior managing physician of the Department of Dermatology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, compared CNN to a child’s brain, explaining in the press release that the technology improved with each training session.
In this study, researchers trained the CNN to identify skin cancer by showing it more than 100,000 images of malignant melanomas, the deadliest form of skin cancer, as well as nevi, benign moles, and indicating the diagnosis for each image.
The researchers from Germany, France and the United States then compared CNN’s performance to the performance of the dermatologists and discovered that CNN missed fewer melanomas and misdiagnosed nevi as malignant less often than the dermatologists. The dermatologists accurately detected an average of 86.6% of melanomas and accurately detected an average of 71.3% of nevi. However, the CNN correctly identified 95% of melanomas.
Later in the study, the dermatologists were given clinical information about the patients, including sex, age and location of the lesion. Their success rate of accurately diagnosing malignant melanomas increased to 88.9% and to 75.7% for accurately detecting benign nevi. However, the CNN still had a higher success rate even without this background information.
According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, melanoma kills an estimated 10,130 people in the United States per year, and incidences of melanoma are rising.
