ExAID: A multimodal explanation framework for computer-aided diagnosis of skin lesions.

Journal: Computer methods and programs in biomedicine
Published Date:

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: One principal impediment in the successful deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems in everyday clinical workflows is their lack of transparent decision-making. Although commonly used eXplainable AI (XAI) methods provide insights into these largely opaque algorithms, such explanations are usually convoluted and not readily comprehensible. The explanation of decisions regarding the malignancy of skin lesions from dermoscopic images demands particular clarity, as the underlying medical problem definition is ambiguous in itself. This work presents ExAID (Explainable AI for Dermatology), a novel XAI framework for biomedical image analysis that provides multi-modal concept-based explanations, consisting of easy-to-understand textual explanations and visual maps, to justify the predictions.

Authors

  • Adriano Lucieri
    German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH, Trippstadter Straße 122, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany; Technical University Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße 52, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany. Electronic address: adriano.lucieri@dfki.de.
  • Muhammad Naseer Bajwa
    Fachbereich Informatik, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, 67663, Kaiserslautern, Germany. bajwa@dfki.uni-kl.de.
  • Stephan Alexander Braun
    University Hospital Münster, Albert-Schweitzer-Campus 1, 48149 Münster, Germany; University Hospital of Düsseldorf, Moorenstraße 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. Electronic address: stephanalexander.braun@ukmuenster.de.
  • Muhammad Imran Malik
    Deep Learning Laboratory, National Center of Artificial Intelligence, Islamabad, 46000, Pakistan.
  • Andreas Dengel
    German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germnay. Andreas.Dengel@dfki.de.
  • Sheraz Ahmed
    German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germnay. Sheraz.Ahmed@dfki.de.