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Diagnostics
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Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches
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Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches

A special issue of Diagnostics (ISSN 2075-4418). This special issue belongs to the section "Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Diagnostics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 40556

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Isabella Ellinger

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Pathophysiology and Allergy Research, Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Interests: automated microscopic image analysis
Dr. Amirreza Mahbod

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Pathophysiology and Allergy Research, Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Interests: medical image analysis; machine learning; deep learning; computer vision; medical imaging
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleague,

Skin diseases are widespread and a frequent occurrence in general practice. Providing access to medical care and high accuracy of diagnosis are important issues, specifically when it comes to distinguishing benign conditions from malignancies such as melanomas that require rapid diagnosis and treatment.

Dermatologists diagnose skin lesions from dermoscopic or clinical images by visual inspection. To support the diagnostic process that might be slowed by an increasing workload as well as a lack of specialist in certain areas of the world, methods for computer-aided detection and computer-aided diagnosis for skin lesion image analysis have been developed. Among them, advanced machine learning and especially deep learning (DL) approaches have reached dermatologist-level classification of skin lesions from dermoscopic and non-dermoscopic images and generated considerable expectations in this area. Suitable cloud-based or offline computational resources, and large publicly available databases for skin lesion images have further enhanced the development of dermatological applications of DL-based technologies for image analysis. Before their effective use in clinical settings, however, several issues remain to be addressed, such as quality standards of images, generation of unbiased image data sets, generalizability of models, applicability of algorithms in a real-world settings or transparency of the decision process of DL algorithms, to name some.

The aim of this Special Issue is to present the most recent advances in the use of machine learning approaches for various skin lesion image analysis tasks, including but not limited to skin lesion classification, skin lesion segmentation, interpretable AI-based systems for skin lesion analysis, and robust pre- and post-processing approaches to increase diagnostic performances.

Prof. Dr. Isabella Ellinger
Dr. Mahbod Amirreza
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diagnostics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Artificial intelligence
  • Deep learning
  • Machine learning
  • Skin lesion image analysis
  • Dermatoscopy

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 162 KiB  
Editorial
Special Issue on “Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches”
by Amirreza Mahbod and Isabella Ellinger
Diagnostics 2022, 12(8), 1928; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/diagnostics12081928 - 10 Aug 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1497
Abstract
Skin diseases are widespread and a frequent occurrence in general practice [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches)

Research

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18 pages, 5437 KiB  
Article
Uncovering and Correcting Shortcut Learning in Machine Learning Models for Skin Cancer Diagnosis
by Meike Nauta, Ricky Walsh, Adam Dubowski and Christin Seifert
Diagnostics 2022, 12(1), 40; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/diagnostics12010040 - 24 Dec 2021
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 4386
Abstract
Machine learning models have been successfully applied for analysis of skin images. However, due to the black box nature of such deep learning models, it is difficult to understand their underlying reasoning. This prevents a human from validating whether the model is right [...] Read more.
Machine learning models have been successfully applied for analysis of skin images. However, due to the black box nature of such deep learning models, it is difficult to understand their underlying reasoning. This prevents a human from validating whether the model is right for the right reasons. Spurious correlations and other biases in data can cause a model to base its predictions on such artefacts rather than on the true relevant information. These learned shortcuts can in turn cause incorrect performance estimates and can result in unexpected outcomes when the model is applied in clinical practice. This study presents a method to detect and quantify this shortcut learning in trained classifiers for skin cancer diagnosis, since it is known that dermoscopy images can contain artefacts. Specifically, we train a standard VGG16-based skin cancer classifier on the public ISIC dataset, for which colour calibration charts (elliptical, coloured patches) occur only in benign images and not in malignant ones. Our methodology artificially inserts those patches and uses inpainting to automatically remove patches from images to assess the changes in predictions. We find that our standard classifier partly bases its predictions of benign images on the presence of such a coloured patch. More importantly, by artificially inserting coloured patches into malignant images, we show that shortcut learning results in a significant increase in misdiagnoses, making the classifier unreliable when used in clinical practice. With our results, we, therefore, want to increase awareness of the risks of using black box machine learning models trained on potentially biased datasets. Finally, we present a model-agnostic method to neutralise shortcut learning by removing the bias in the training dataset by exchanging coloured patches with benign skin tissue using image inpainting and re-training the classifier on this de-biased dataset. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches)
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26 pages, 3102 KiB  
Article
Integrating Domain Knowledge into Deep Learning for Skin Lesion Risk Prioritization to Assist Teledermatology Referral
by Rafaela Carvalho, Ana C. Morgado, Catarina Andrade, Tudor Nedelcu, André Carreiro and Maria João M. Vasconcelos
Diagnostics 2022, 12(1), 36; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/diagnostics12010036 - 24 Dec 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3046
Abstract
Teledermatology has developed rapidly in recent years and is nowadays an essential tool for early diagnosis. In this work, we aim to improve existing Teledermatology processes for skin lesion diagnosis by developing a deep learning approach for risk prioritization with a dataset of [...] Read more.
Teledermatology has developed rapidly in recent years and is nowadays an essential tool for early diagnosis. In this work, we aim to improve existing Teledermatology processes for skin lesion diagnosis by developing a deep learning approach for risk prioritization with a dataset of retrospective data from referral requests of the Portuguese National Health System. Given the high complexity of this task, we propose a new prioritization pipeline guided and inspired by domain knowledge. We explored automatic lesion segmentation and tested different learning schemes, namely hierarchical classification and curriculum learning approaches, optionally including additional patient metadata. The final priority level prediction can then be obtained by combining predicted diagnosis and a baseline priority level accounting for explicit expert knowledge. In both the differential diagnosis and prioritization branches, lesion segmentation with 30% tolerance for contextual information was shown to improve classification when compared with a flat baseline model trained on original images; furthermore, the addition of patient information was not beneficial for most experiments. Curriculum learning delivered better results than a flat or hierarchical approach. The combination of diagnosis information and a knowledge map, created in collaboration with dermatologists, together with the priority achieved interesting results (best macro F1 of 43.93% for a validated test set), paving the way for new data-centric and knowledge-driven approaches. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches)
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14 pages, 4918 KiB  
Article
Computer-Aided Detection (CADe) System with Optical Coherent Tomography for Melanin Morphology Quantification in Melasma Patients
by I-Ling Chen, Yen-Jen Wang, Chang-Cheng Chang, Yu-Hung Wu, Chih-Wei Lu, Jia-Wei Shen, Ling Huang, Bor-Shyh Lin and Hsiu-Mei Chiang
Diagnostics 2021, 11(8), 1498; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/diagnostics11081498 - 19 Aug 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2883
Abstract
Dark skin-type individuals have a greater tendency to have pigmentary disorders, among which melasma is especially refractory to treat and often recurs. Objective measurement of melanin amount helps evaluate the treatment response of pigmentary disorders. However, naked-eye evaluation is subjective to weariness and [...] Read more.
Dark skin-type individuals have a greater tendency to have pigmentary disorders, among which melasma is especially refractory to treat and often recurs. Objective measurement of melanin amount helps evaluate the treatment response of pigmentary disorders. However, naked-eye evaluation is subjective to weariness and bias. We used a cellular resolution full-field optical coherence tomography (FF-OCT) to assess melanin features of melasma lesions and perilesional skin on the cheeks of eight Asian patients. A computer-aided detection (CADe) system is proposed to mark and quantify melanin. This system combines spatial compounding-based denoising convolutional neural networks (SC-DnCNN), and through image processing techniques, various types of melanin features, including area, distribution, intensity, and shape, can be extracted. Through evaluations of the image differences between the lesion and perilesional skin, a distribution-based feature of confetti melanin without layering, two distribution-based features of confetti melanin in stratum spinosum, and a distribution-based feature of grain melanin at the dermal–epidermal junction, statistically significant findings were achieved (p-values = 0.0402, 0.0032, 0.0312, and 0.0426, respectively). FF-OCT enables the real-time observation of melanin features, and the CADe system with SC-DnCNN was a precise and objective tool with which to interpret the area, distribution, intensity, and shape of melanin on FF-OCT images. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches)
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16 pages, 3501 KiB  
Article
Towards Accurate Diagnosis of Skin Lesions Using Feedforward Back Propagation Neural Networks
by Simona Moldovanu, Cristian-Dragos Obreja, Keka C. Biswas and Luminita Moraru
Diagnostics 2021, 11(6), 936; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/diagnostics11060936 - 22 May 2021
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 4391
Abstract
In the automatic detection framework, there have been many attempts to develop models for real-time melanoma detection. To effectively discriminate benign and malign skin lesions, this work investigates sixty different architectures of the Feedforward Back Propagation Network (FFBPN), based on shape asymmetry for [...] Read more.
In the automatic detection framework, there have been many attempts to develop models for real-time melanoma detection. To effectively discriminate benign and malign skin lesions, this work investigates sixty different architectures of the Feedforward Back Propagation Network (FFBPN), based on shape asymmetry for an optimal structural design that includes both the hidden neuron number and the input data selection. The reason for the choice of shape asymmetry was based on the 5–10% disagreement between dermatologists regarding the efficacy of asymmetry in the diagnosis of malignant melanoma. Asymmetry is quantified based on lesion shape (contour), moment of inertia of the lesion shape and histograms. The FFBPN has a high architecture flexibility, which indicates it as a favorable tool to avoid the over-parameterization of the ANN and, equally, to discard those redundant input datasets that usually result in poor test performance. The FFBPN was tested on four public image datasets containing melanoma, dysplastic nevus and nevus images. Experimental results on multiple benchmark data sets demonstrate that asymmetry A2 is a meaningful feature for skin lesion classification, and FFBPN with 16 neurons in the hidden layer can model the data without compromising prediction accuracy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches)
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26 pages, 9462 KiB  
Article
Skin Lesion Segmentation and Multiclass Classification Using Deep Learning Features and Improved Moth Flame Optimization
by Muhammad Attique Khan, Muhammad Sharif, Tallha Akram, Robertas Damaševičius and Rytis Maskeliūnas
Diagnostics 2021, 11(5), 811; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/diagnostics11050811 - 29 Apr 2021
Cited by 163 | Viewed by 8144
Abstract
Manual diagnosis of skin cancer is time-consuming and expensive; therefore, it is essential to develop automated diagnostics methods with the ability to classify multiclass skin lesions with greater accuracy. We propose a fully automated approach for multiclass skin lesion segmentation and classification by [...] Read more.
Manual diagnosis of skin cancer is time-consuming and expensive; therefore, it is essential to develop automated diagnostics methods with the ability to classify multiclass skin lesions with greater accuracy. We propose a fully automated approach for multiclass skin lesion segmentation and classification by using the most discriminant deep features. First, the input images are initially enhanced using local color-controlled histogram intensity values (LCcHIV). Next, saliency is estimated using a novel Deep Saliency Segmentation method, which uses a custom convolutional neural network (CNN) of ten layers. The generated heat map is converted into a binary image using a thresholding function. Next, the segmented color lesion images are used for feature extraction by a deep pre-trained CNN model. To avoid the curse of dimensionality, we implement an improved moth flame optimization (IMFO) algorithm to select the most discriminant features. The resultant features are fused using a multiset maximum correlation analysis (MMCA) and classified using the Kernel Extreme Learning Machine (KELM) classifier. The segmentation performance of the proposed methodology is analyzed on ISBI 2016, ISBI 2017, ISIC 2018, and PH2 datasets, achieving an accuracy of 95.38%, 95.79%, 92.69%, and 98.70%, respectively. The classification performance is evaluated on the HAM10000 dataset and achieved an accuracy of 90.67%. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed methods, we present a comparison with the state-of-the-art techniques. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches)
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Other

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29 pages, 2045 KiB  
Systematic Review
Machine Learning and Deep Learning Methods for Skin Lesion Classification and Diagnosis: A Systematic Review
by Mohamed A. Kassem, Khalid M. Hosny, Robertas Damaševičius and Mohamed Meselhy Eltoukhy
Diagnostics 2021, 11(8), 1390; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/diagnostics11081390 - 31 Jul 2021
Cited by 123 | Viewed by 13435
Abstract
Computer-aided systems for skin lesion diagnosis is a growing area of research. Recently, researchers have shown an increasing interest in developing computer-aided diagnosis systems. This paper aims to review, synthesize and evaluate the quality of evidence for the diagnostic accuracy of computer-aided systems. [...] Read more.
Computer-aided systems for skin lesion diagnosis is a growing area of research. Recently, researchers have shown an increasing interest in developing computer-aided diagnosis systems. This paper aims to review, synthesize and evaluate the quality of evidence for the diagnostic accuracy of computer-aided systems. This study discusses the papers published in the last five years in ScienceDirect, IEEE, and SpringerLink databases. It includes 53 articles using traditional machine learning methods and 49 articles using deep learning methods. The studies are compared based on their contributions, the methods used and the achieved results. The work identified the main challenges of evaluating skin lesion segmentation and classification methods such as small datasets, ad hoc image selection and racial bias. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Skin Lesion Image Analysis Using Machine Learning Approaches)
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