A convolutional neural network trained with dermoscopic images performed on par with 145 dermatologists in a clinical melanoma image classification task.

Journal: European journal of cancer (Oxford, England : 1990)
Published Date:

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have demonstrated the use of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to classify images of melanoma with accuracies comparable to those achieved by board-certified dermatologists. However, the performance of a CNN exclusively trained with dermoscopic images in a clinical image classification task in direct competition with a large number of dermatologists has not been measured to date. This study compares the performance of a convolutional neuronal network trained with dermoscopic images exclusively for identifying melanoma in clinical photographs with the manual grading of the same images by dermatologists.

Authors

  • Titus J Brinker
    National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany.
  • Achim Hekler
    National Center for Tumor Diseases, Department of Translational Oncology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
  • Alexander H Enk
    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Heidelberg, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
  • Joachim Klode
    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital of Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
  • Axel Hauschild
    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Kiel, Kiel, Germany.
  • Carola Berking
    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Munich, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
  • Bastian Schilling
    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany.
  • Sebastian Haferkamp
    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
  • Dirk Schadendorf
    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Essen, 45147 Essen, Germany.
  • Stefan Fröhling
    National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Im Neuenheimer Feld 460, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
  • Jochen S Utikal
    Department of Dermatology, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; Skin Cancer Unit, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany.
  • Christof von Kalle
    National Center for Tumor Diseases, Department of Translational Oncology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.