Health Rounds: AI may improve skin condition diagnosis, skin tone bias still exists
08/02/2024 19:19
By Nancy Lapid
Feb 8 (Reuters) - Hello Health Rounds Readers! Today we
bring you another example of a potential benefit of artificial
intelligence: it may help doctors improve diagnoses of skin
conditions but does not necessarily yield an equivalent benefit
in reducing racial bias in diagnoses. We also highlight a
potentially important discovery in the mechanism behind allergic
reactions. And we report on a finding that more frequent sex
improved erections in mice, which might help understanding of
erectile dysfunction in humans.
AI may improve skin diagnoses, may not compensate for bias
Artificial intelligence (AI) can improve the odds that
doctors will correctly diagnose skin disease, but that does not
automatically mean it will compensate for racial bias in
medicine, a new report shows.
Researchers recruited nearly 850 dermatologists and general
practitioners and had them look at photographs of various skin
diseases, including atopic dermatitis, Lyme disease, and skin
cancer in patients with different skin tones.
Overall, the dermatologists could accurately diagnose the
conditions in 38% of the skin images, while general
practitioners had an accuracy rate of 19%, researchers reported
on Monday in Nature Medicine.
But darker-skin images were diagnosed 10% less accurately
than images of light skin by dermatologists and 22% less
accurately by primary care providers.
Using an AI algorithm developed by the research team, the
accuracy rate rose to 60% among dermatologists and 47% among
general practitioners, but the improvements were greater when
diagnosing patients with lighter skin.
The researchers also found bias in identifying patients who
needed a biopsy.
For example, based on pictures showing evidence of a
life-threatening skin cancer, both groups of doctors would send
light-skinned patients for biopsy significantly more often than
darker-skinned patients.
People with dark skin would more often be sent by
dermatologists for biopsies of common non-dangerous skin
conditions such as atopic dermatitis, based on the photos.
The researchers note that making a diagnosis based only on
photos is much harder than when examining a patient in person.
“These results demonstrate that well-designed
physician–machine partnerships can enhance the diagnostic
accuracy of physicians... (but) success in improving overall
diagnostic accuracy does not necessarily address bias,” they
said.
Researchers find source of allergic reaction antibodies
Researchers have discovered which immune system cells
initiate production of antibodies that trigger allergic
reactions, according to two reports published on Wednesday in
Science Translational Medicine.
These so-called type-2 memory B cells (MBC2) respond to
allergens by rapidly transforming into plasma cells that produce
the immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies that trigger the allergic
reaction, the researchers found.
“Finding the cells that hold IgE memory is a key step
forward and a game changer in our understanding of what causes
allergy and how treatment, such as allergy immunotherapy, can
modify the disease,” Peter Sejer Andersen of Danish drugmaker
ALK-Abello ALKb.CO , who co-led one of the studies, said in a
statement.
His team found large amounts of these B cells in adults with
birch allergy, house dust mite allergy, or peanut allergy, but
not in volunteers without the allergies.
A separate team found large amounts of these B cells in
children with peanut allergy but not in similar children without
allergy.
“The discovery really pinpoints two potential therapeutic
approaches we might be able to take,” Kelly Bruton of Stanford
University, who worked on the study with Andersen, said in a
statement.
“The first is targeting those MBC2s and eliminating them
from an allergic person," Bruton said. "The other option could
involve changing their function and have them do something
that’s not going to be ultimately harmful when the individual is
exposed to the allergen.”
More sex helps erections in mice and maybe humans
Research in mice has found that regular erections help
maintain erectile function and that cells that contribute to the
formation of connective tissue called fibroblasts play an
important role in supporting healthy erections.
The fibroblasts take up the neurotransmitter noradrenaline,
which leads to the widening of blood vessels in the penis. The
widened blood vessels allow more blood to flow into
cylinder-shaped erectile chambers known as corpora cavernosa,
which straightens the penis.
The effectiveness of this process depends on the number of
fibroblasts, which in turn is affected by the frequency of
erections, among other factors, the researchers also found. The
more frequently the mice had erections, the more fibroblasts in
the penis.
This would likely be true in humans, too, the researchers
surmised in a report on Thursday in the journal Science.
Older mice had fewer fibroblasts in the penis, and
consequently lower blood flow. The ability to get an erection
decreases with age also in humans, which could be partly due to
fewer fibroblasts in the penis, the researchers said.
The researchers said they hope their findings may lead to
new treatments for erectile dysfunction.
Exercise in general is known to increase fibroblast
production, previous research on humans has shown.
“If sedentary behavior and low sexual activity leads to
fewer of these fibroblasts... then regular exercise, sexual
activity and other lifestyle changes should be helpful for
sexual dysfunction,” a commentary published with the study
suggests.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; additional reporting by Shawana
Alleyne-Morris; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
((nancy.lapid@thomsonreuters.com))