Detecting Skin Reactions in Epicutaneous Patch Testing with Deep Learning: An Evaluation of Pre-Processing and Modality Performance.

Epicutaneous patch testing is a well-established diagnostic method for identifying substances that may cause Allergic Contact Dermatitis (ACD), a common skin condition caused by exposure to environmental allergens. While the patch test remains the gold standard for identifying allergens, it is prone to observer bias and consumes valuable human resources. Deep learning models can be employed to address this challenge. In this study, we collected a dataset of 1579 multi-modal skin images from 200 patients using the Antera 3D® camera. We then investigated the feasibility of using a deep learning classifier for automating the identification of the allergens causing ACD. We propose a deep learning approach that utilizes a context-retaining pre-processing technique to improve the accuracy of the classifier. In addition, we find promise in the combination of the color image and false-color map of hemoglobin concentration to improve diagnostic accuracy. Our results showed that this approach can potentially achieve more than 86% recall and 94% specificity in identifying skin reactions, and contribute to faster and more accurate diagnosis while reducing clinician workload.

Deep Learning Approaches to Osteosarcoma Diagnosis and Classification: A Comparative Methodological Approach.

BACKGROUND: Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignancy of the bone, being most prevalent in childhood and adolescence. Despite recent progress in diagnostic methods, histopathology remains the gold standard for disease staging and therapy decisions. Machine learning and deep learning methods have shown potential for evaluating and classifying histopathological cross-sections. METHODS: This study used publicly available images of osteosarcoma cross-sections to analyze and compare the performance of state-of-the-art deep neural networks for histopathological evaluation of osteosarcomas. RESULTS: The classification performance did not necessarily improve when using larger networks on our dataset. In fact, the smallest network combined with the smallest image input size achieved the best overall performance. When trained using 5-fold cross-validation, the MobileNetV2 network achieved 91% overall accuracy. CONCLUSIONS: The present study highlights the importance of careful selection of network and input image size. Our results indicate that a larger number of parameters is not always better, and the best results can be achieved on smaller and more efficient networks. The identification of an optimal network and training configuration could greatly improve the accuracy of osteosarcoma diagnoses and ultimately lead to better disease outcomes for patients.

A Novel Real-time Automatic Angioectasia Detection Method in Wireless Capsule Endoscopy Video Feed.

The development of Wireless Capsule Endoscopy (WCE) revolutionized the examination of the small bowel for diseases. Upon swallowing a capsule (a microscopic camera that resembles an ordinary pill in both shape and size), images of the patient's gastrointestinal (GI) tract are wirelessly transmitted from it to an external recorder. The inspection of these images is, to this day, still manually performed by medical professionals - a lengthy, and especially prone to errors, process. One of the most common diagnoses is the presence of angioectasias, i.e. ectatic vessels on the GI tract that are predisposed to bleeding. In this paper, a novel method for automatic detection of these lesions is proposed, using a combination of low-level image processing, feature detection and machine learning, that can run in real-time without the need for specialized hardware or graphics cards, achieving 92.7% sensitivity and 99.5% specificity to angioectasias. This method can also be expanded to include more pathologies.