AI's potential in skin cancer management comes with a warning

Artificial intelligence (AI) use in dermatology is primed to become a powerful tool in skin cancer assessment, but it remains to be seen how diagnostic devices in dermatology will influence decision making in the clinic and affect patient outcomes, according to the authors of a Perspective published online today by the Medical Journal of Australia. In dermatology the primary focus for the use of AI has been on developing machine learning systems that facilitate classification and decision support for skin cancer management. "Recent studies show that machine learning algorithms have the potential to surpass the diagnostic performance of experts, and the challenge now is how to implement this new technology safely into clinical practice," wrote the authors, led by Associate Professor Victoria Mar, a consultant dermatologist and Director of the Victorian Melanoma Service at Alfred Hospital. "There are two potentially negative implications for clinical practice: first, clinicians may have difficulty upskilling by following the algorithms' outputs; and second, there exists the potential for deskilling and underperforming due to an over-reliance on technology. Algorithm performance is dependent on both the size and quality of the training image dataset and on whether the algorithm is used in situations for which it was intended," wrote Mar and colleagues.