Skin Cancer Diagnoses Using AI Are as Reliable as those Made by Medical Experts

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already widely used in medical diagnostics. An Austrian-Australian research team led by dermatologist Harald Kittler from MedUni Vienna investigated the extent to which diagnosis and therapy of pigmented skin lesions benefit from it in a realistic clinical scenario. In a study published by The Lancet Digital Health, the team compared the accuracy in diagnosis and therapy recommendation of two different algorithms in smartphone applications with that of doctors. The results show that the AI application generally performs well in diagnosis. However, doctors were clearly superior when it came to treatment decisions.

The research team tested the AI application under realistic clinical conditions in two skin cancer centres, the University Department of Dermatology at MedUni Vienna and the Sydney Melanoma Diagnostic Centre in Australia. The prospective study consisted of two scenarios, with AI being used in scenario A for changes suspicious of skin cancer and in scenario B for patients with many moles. The AI-assisted application was compared in both cases with both medical experts and less experienced physicians.

In scenario A, 172 suspicious pigmented lesions (of which 84 were malignant) were examined in 124 patients; in scenario B, the research team analysed 5,696 pigmented lesions (of which 18 were malignant) in 66 patients. Two different AI-based smartphone applications were used: a novel 7-class AI algorithm and an ISIC algorithm already used in retrospective preliminary studies. In scenario A, the 7-class AI algorithm showed equivalent diagnostic accuracy compared to the experts while it was significantly superior to the less experienced physicians. The ISIC algorithm, on the other hand, performed significantly worse compared to experts, but better than the inexperienced users.

A critical view of AI decisions

In terms of treatment decisions, the 7-class algorithm was significantly inferior to the experts but superior to the inexperienced users. The results suggest that an AI-assisted smartphone application for skin cancer diagnosis makes similarly good diagnostic decisions as experts in a real clinical scenario. When it came to treatment decisions, however, the experts were superior to the AI. Kittler: "The AI application tends to remove more benign lesions in the treatment recommendation than experts would. If you take this into account, the AI application can certainly be used. It should also be borne in mind that if it is used uncritically, too many false-positive findings would have to be clarified."

Menzies SW, Sinz C, Menzies M, Lo SN, Yolland W, Lingohr J, Razmara M, Tschandl P, Guitera P, Scolyer RA, Boltz F, Borik-Heil L, Herbert Chan H, Chromy D, Coker DJ, Collgros H, Eghtedari M, Corral Forteza M, Forward E, Gallo B, Geisler S, Gibson M, Hampel A, Ho G, Junez L, Kienzl P, Martin A, Moloney FJ, Regio Pereira A, Ressler JM, Richter S, Silic K, Silly T, Skoll M, Tittes J, Weber P, Weninger W, Weiss D, Woo-Sampson P, Zilberg C, Kittler H.
Comparison of humans versus mobile phone-powered artificial intelligence for the diagnosis and management of pigmented skin cancer in secondary care: a multicentre, prospective, diagnostic, clinical trial.
Lancet Digit Health. 2023 Oct;5(10):e679-e691. doi: 10.1016/S2589-7500(23)00130-9

Most Popular Now

Philips and Medtronic Advocacy Partnersh…

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, and Medtronic Neurovascular, a leading innovator in neurovascular therapies, today announced a strategic advocacy partnership. Delivering timely stroke...

Wearable Cameras Allow AI to Detect Medi…

A team of researchers says it has developed the first wearable camera system that, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), detects potential errors in medication delivery. In a test whose...

New AI Tool Predicts Protein-Protein Int…

Scientists from Cleveland Clinic and Cornell University have designed a publicly-available software and web database to break down barriers to identifying key protein-protein interactions to treat with medication. The computational tool...

AI for Real-Rime, Patient-Focused Insigh…

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but still... they both have a lot of work to do to catch up to BiomedGPT. Covered recently in the prestigious journal Nature...

New Research Shows Promise and Limitatio…

Published in JAMA Network Open, a collaborative team of researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School, Stanford University, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the University of Virginia studied...

G-Cloud 14 Makes it Easier for NHS to Bu…

NHS organisations will be able to save valuable time and resource in the procurement of technologies that can make a significant difference to patient experience, in the latest iteration of...

Start-Ups will Once Again Have a Starrin…

11 - 14 November 2024, Düsseldorf, Germany. The finalists in the 16th Healthcare Innovation World Cup and the 13th MEDICA START-UP COMPETITION have advanced from around 550 candidates based in 62...

Hampshire Emergency Departments Digitise…

Emergency departments in three hospitals across Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have deployed Alcidion's Miya Emergency, digitising paper processes, saving clinical teams time, automating tasks, and providing trust-wide visibility of...

MEDICA HEALTH IT FORUM: Success in Maste…

11 - 14 November 2024, Düsseldorf, Germany. How can innovations help to master the great challenges and demands with which healthcare is confronted across international borders? This central question will be...

A "Chemical ChatGPT" for New M…

Researchers from the University of Bonn have trained an AI process to predict potential active ingredients with special properties. Therefore, they derived a chemical language model - a kind of...

Siemens Healthineers co-leads EU Project…

Siemens Healthineers is joining forces with more than 20 industry and public partners, including seven leading stroke hospitals, to improve stroke management for patients all over Europe. With a total...

MEDICA and COMPAMED 2024: Shining a Ligh…

11 - 14 November 2024, Düsseldorf, Germany. Christian Grosser, Director Health & Medical Technologies, is looking forward to events getting under way: "From next Monday to Thursday, we will once again...