Periodic Reporting for period 1 - iToBoS (Intelligent Total Body Scanner for Early Detection of Melanoma)
Reporting period: 2021-04-01 to 2022-09-30
iToBoS aims at developing an AI diagnostic platform for early detection of melanoma. The platform includes a novel total body scanner and a Computer Aided Diagnostics (CAD) tool to integrate various data sources such as medical records, genomics data and in vivo imaging. This approach will lead to a highly patient-tailored, early diagnosis of melanoma. The project will develop and validate an AI cognitive assistant tool to empower healthcare practitioners, offering a risk assessment for every mole. Beyond integrating all available information about the patient to personalise the diagnostic, it will provide methods for visualising, explaining and interpreting AI models, thus overcoming the “black box” nature of current AI-enabled CAD systems, and providing dermatologists with valuable information for their clinical practice.
This contingency plan is based on the acquisition of skin images using the best total body scanner that could be found in the market (VECTRA360 by Canfield). The team started to develop the tools for image ingestion, as well as the anonymization and masking tools both for the images and the patient data. In this sense, we have defined the specific demographic and clinical data from the patients to be used by the AI, together with the lesion images. Secondly, a number of tasks such as lesion detection, lesion classification and development of eXplainable AI (XAI) have started by using public image datasets, allowing the advance in these domains. Moreover, both ethical risks as well as ethical opportunities, such as being able to detect melanoma earlier or personalizing the diagnostics, have been assessed during this first period. All the medical research ethics aspects have been addressed and the clinical protocols for the use of the VECTRA images and the patient’s data have been submitted to the corresponding ethical committees. Finally, a patient engagement plan with touch points and educational needs has been developed, specifying how iToBoS will engage with the broader patient community. And regarding outreach, the consortium has defined the dissemination and communication strategy of iToBoS to set the guidelines, actions and tools to channel the efforts aimed at achieving a wide impact of the project among the target audience to extend the results and benefits of the project to the society in general.
The unprecedented system proposed by iToBoS will lead to an increase in the EU’s capacity to innovate in the field of melanoma diagnosis, achieving quicker, more encompassing and highly personalised diagnostics.
The reduction in the time required to perform a full body exploration of the skin of the patient will be substantial, with expected acquisition time of a scan at 6 minutes, as compared to the 40-50 minutes required for explorations using common contact dermoscopy. The new diagnosis tool to be developed is expected to increase the melanoma detection rate by, at least, 20%. The personalized diagnostic and associated treatment generated with the tools and algorithms developed in iToBoS will reduce the costs associated with long term treatments. At the same time, it is expected to increase the 5 year survival rate from less than 23% to 98%.
The international positioning of iToBoS is validated by the different nationalities not only from Europe, but also from Australia and Israel, and with an external Advisory Board also covering the USA market. The outcomes of iToBoS will be disseminated with the publication of 40 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and 30 conference-related publications. iToBoS will participate in at least 50 scientific, medical or commercial events and organize international challenges. We expect at least 4 other skin-related diseases to benefit from the total body skin scanner, opening the door to other markets within the medical area.
iToBoS will contribute to fulfilling the social right to explanation and the transparency requirements of the EU’s Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI (April 2019). A huge effort will be devoted to pushing forward explainable AI. Explainability in the AI to be developed within the project is crucial to presenting the decisions taken by the system in a way that can be both understood and followed by humans. Due to the AI systems to be developed in iToBoS having a significant impact on the diagnosis of a patient, the project will develop suitable explanations for the AI decision-making process adapted to the expertise of the dermatologist.
There are 10 companies partnering the project, 6 of which are SMEs, that will greatly benefit from its outcomes, extending their expertise in the healthcare sector and reaching new potential market niches. A great deal of dissemination will be devoted to reaching SMEs outside the project.