|26 January 2017|
USA
Diagnosing skin cancer using a smartphone could soon be a reality thanks to pioneering work undertaken by a team of computer scientists at Stanford.
The team has developed an artificially intelligent diagnosis algorithm for skin cancer.
“They made a database of nearly 130,000 skin disease images and trained their algorithm to visually diagnose potential cancer. From the very first test, it performed with inspiring accuracy,” a Stanford News article revealed.
“Although this algorithm currently exists on a computer, the team would like to make it smartphone compatible in the near future, bringing reliable skin cancer diagnoses to our fingertips.”
“My main eureka moment was when I realized just how ubiquitous smartphones will be,” Andre Esteva, co-lead author of the paper and a graduate student in the Thrun lab, told Stanford News. “Everyone will have a supercomputer in their pockets with a number of sensors in it, including a camera. What if we could use it to visually screen for skin cancer? Or other ailments?”
A paper outlining the results was published in an issue of Nature.
