AI in Dermatology: Bridging the Gap Between Potential and Practice

Abstract

Artificial intelligence has been rapidly penetrating every element of our lives for quite some time. However, its presence in health care has remained elusive. This is particularly apparent in the field of dermatology, where, given the characteristics of this discipline of medicine, it would seems that its presence should be abundant. Malignant skin lesions are still high in the statistics in terms of cancer mortality while being one of the easiest to treat when diagnosed early. There are many reasons why artificial intelligence is not used in daily practice as an aid for cancers detection. However the most important one is the ongoing insufficient quality of the algorithms, which, despite great results in laboratory settings, do not produce good enough outcomes in clinical settings. Other important reasons are that people still distrust and fear artificial intelligence and simply the legal lack of adaptation of countries to its lawful and safe use. Despite the work of scientists and legislators the road to seeing artificial intelligence as a helping tool for dermatologists on a daily basis is still very long and requires the attention of scientists and the whole medical community.