Volume 11 Issue 6
Australians’ Well-Being and Resilience During COVID-19: The Role of Trust, Misinformation, Intolerance of Uncertainty, and Locus of Control
Nida Denson,Kevin M. Dunn,Alanna Kamp,Jehonathan Ben,Daniel Pitman,Rachel Sharples,Grace Lim,Yin Paradies andCraig McGarty
1Department of Cardiology, Angiology and Intensive Care, Deutsches Herzzentrum der Charité, 12203 Berlin, Germany
2Department of Internal Medicine III, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
3Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, Institute of Active Polymers and Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Regenerative Therapies, 14513 Teltow, Germany
4Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract
Background: Actinic keratoses (AK) usually occur on sun-exposed areas in elderly patients with Fitzpatrick I–II skin types. Dermatoscopy and ultrasonography are two non-invasive tools helpful in examining clinically suspicious lesions. This study presents the usefulness of image-processing algorithms in AK staging based on dermatoscopic and ultrasonographic images. Methods: In 54 patients treated at the Department of Dermatology of Poznan University of Medical Sciences, clinical, dermatoscopic, and ultrasound examinations were performed. The clinico-dermoscopic AK classification was based on three-point Zalaudek scale. The ultrasound images were recorded with DermaScan C, Cortex Technology device, 20 MHz. The dataset consisted of 162 image pairs. The developed algorithm includes automated segmentation of ultrasound data utilizing a CFPNet-M model followed by handcrafted feature extraction. The dermatoscopic image analysis includes both handcrafted and convolutional neural network features, which, combined with ultrasound descriptors, are used in support vector machine-based classification. The network models were trained on public datasets. The influence of each modality on the final classification was evaluated. Results: The most promising results were obtained for the dermatoscopic analysis with the use of neural network model (accuracy 81%) and its combination with ultrasound scans (accuracy 79%). Conclusions: The application of machine learning-based algorithms in dermatoscopic and ultrasound image analysis machine learning in the staging of AKs may be beneficial in clinical practice in terms of predicting the risk of progression. Further experiments are warranted, as incorporating more images is likely to improve classification accuracy of the system.
Keywords: artificial intelligence; actinic keratosis; high frequency ultrasonography; dermatoscopy; digital imaging