"It is important not to tell a person the exact diagnosis – they are afraid." Doctors have done a startup to diagnose skin diseases

HealthySun is a kind of calculator for sunbathing enthusiasts: if you specify your skin type and SPF setting (written on each bottle), the app calculates how much time you need. you can be in the sun without risk to health.

Stations are useful

– Is this app relevant to our country?

– No: summer in Belarus, conditionally, three days a year. But those traveling to resorts, especially with young children, should pay attention to the sun. Our skin is used to a less aggressive ultraviolet. In Israel or Turkey, the ultraviolet index is 7-8, and we are considered the norm of 3-5

According to our impressions, people in Belarus do not care particularly. And in Western countries, the problem is urgent: there are expensive drugs, the population likes to live healthy, all are in good health, not to pay a lot of money.

According to statistics, about 300 melanomas per year are detected in Belarus. Do not say that's a lot. In Australia, where the ultraviolet hard, the ozone hole and many people with fair skin, skin cancer occurs as often as we probably have a cold. At the same time, it is a big problem for New Zealand and the United States.

Taking a sunbath, in Belarus, there are many more risks of catching a fungus or warts. However, these diseases are also diagnosed in the application, so that they can be used not only as a calculator for the duration of the sunburn, but also simply for the initial diagnosis of any skin changes [19659006] – And what about Egypt?

– The level of ultraviolet radiation in these countries is not so high. It all depends not only on the location of the country on the planet and "it's hot there or not". The temperature does not directly affect the ultraviolet radiation.

– HealthySun offers four types of skin. What happens if you make a mistake? Why not set it automatically?

– Determine the type of skin depends heavily on lighting, camera phone. We tried it, but the accuracy was low. If now the user himself can make a mistake, then with the automatic problem system appeared even more. Therefore, we considered the manual option more reliable. People with skin problems know their type in the same way that, for example, rescuers are a blood group.

Without Advertising

– How are you going to make money?

– We do not monetize the application. Until now, it's just early. We want to finalize the technology, increase the value of the product. We sold the app for several months in the US and Australia for $ 3. We wanted to check how many downloads there would be. We paid our expenses, we will say it. Then came to the conclusion that it was not yet time to put the price. Most of these applications are conditionally free – there is a subscription, internal purchases.

There is an idea to create a complete solution for skin care, prevention and diagnosis of diseases. It will be a set of tools. Extra chips may already be sold for cash, and then there will be a sense in monetization. Another point – do not want, for example, add a direct coarse advertising of sunscreens and win as well. We want to integrate such a feature in a natural way.

– Why?

– I want to create a warm atmosphere of the application: a person enters, photographs parts of the body and knows that his data will not be diverted by third parties. The skin is a rather intimate sphere, and the person should trust us.

How not to scare the user

– Now you added SkinaBOT. What is it?

– Project to badyze cutaneous diseases from a photo using artificial intelligence, to which Kirill Atstarov and his team are badociated.

GovTech Hackathon & # 39; 17: the expert system automatically badyzed X-rays and the project of X-ray image badysis with the help of IA Determined the degree of risk of d & # 39; a number of diseases – the system has informed the doctor to which image to pay special attention.

But our Ministry of Health has shown no interest in our technology (despite the fact that there are few radiologists in Belarus). Therefore, we decided to go in the other direction – to make the project not for narrow specialists, but accessible to all.

After thinking about what one could do artificial intelligence in medicine, today, there are already programs to determine skin cancer from photographs, which are of a precision comparable to that of dermatologists. But we need pictures taken with special instruments – dermatoscopes.

We wanted to perform diagnostics without special instruments and diagnose not only cancers. The obvious solution that comes to mind is to use a smartphone camera, because today everyone has it. It took us more than half a year of development and testing for artificial intelligence to learn to see skin diseases on photos taken on the smartphone

– This is a great responsibility: suddenly the application will say that there are no problems to the dermatologist?

– The application is only advisory in nature, that is what is indicated at the launch of HealthySun: until you confirm that you have read the instructions, the application will not work. The diagnosis is made only by the doctor at full-time admission. Especially in countries where there is no law on distance medicine. Through the application you can find out if you need to go to the doctor and with what urgency. This is only a preliminary diagnosis

There was such a story: after the release of the service, the employee said that she had jumped out of her skin. Men would not even pay attention to that – a button, and all right. We decided to check through the neural network. They took a picture: it turned out to be a molluscum contagiosum.

With an average person with this diagnosis, the hair will stand on end. In fact, molluscum contagiosum is a viral disease of the skin, like warts, for example. But it can grow, so you have to go to the doctor quickly. The girl went to the therapist, she sent to the dermatologist. The doctor said: either a mollusk or a papilloma. In addition, there was a direction for the surgeon, and this molluscum was quietly removed. In other words, the person immediately received advice from the application and turned to the doctor, and did not wait for the development of the disease.

In the current version of HealthySun, we only indicate the degree of risk, not the specific disease. Dermatology is a complicated discipline, even a doctor can hardly make an accurate diagnosis. And here, for example, the images may be substandard. It is important not to tell the user that he has doubts here for such a diagnosis. A person may be overrepresented.

There are now 30 skin tumors, about 20 of which are the ones people can take for moles. But apart from them, there are dermatofibromas, hemangiomas and other things. People do not know these names. Look – the birthmark is red. And immediately they write to us: "Is it cancer or not?" But in fact there is simply an angioma – a violation of formation of capillaries, nothing dangerous.

In the tests, it was interesting to observe they recognized the exact diagnoses. What they regarded as a wart was a papillomatous naevus, instead of moles – dermatofibromas, angiomas or even papillomas. During the tests, we found blue nevi in ​​several subjects, although it was a benign neoplasm, but at risk of developing cancer. People with this diagnosis should be supervised by dermatooncologues

– Is the application reinsured? Advise to go to the doctor when nothing serious seems to be there?

– Yes, that moment is. The neural network works this way: there are 30 clbades of diseases that it is trained to distribute. It's one hundred percent, which is spread over thirty clbades. If the probability of coincidence with any of the signs is 50% and the remaining 29 characters disperse the remaining 50%, one can naturally speak of a serious degree of risk.

– What device is needed?

– 10 megapixels. The best is the camera, of course, the more qualitative definition. But the so-called Android smartphone of 15 Mp sometimes removed at the level of the iPhone 5S (8 Mp). The main thing is that the photo is not erased, with good sharpness, normal lighting and a cut background – no carpet in the background, because the neural network goes crazy

– How many once is it advisable to do a check?

– Looking at what type of skin and the predisposition to the appearance of solar pigment spots. In Australia, for example, the dermato-oncologist imposes a mandatory body examination once a year, as is the case for fluorography, for example. Unfortunately, the check-ups planned by a dermatologist are not very popular among our population.

In general, only after seeing changes in the moles – he became fatter, acquired a different color or noticed a new one.

– You want to make HealthySun a diagnostic system for the disease. What else will appear in the application?

– We will add a recommended tanning system. This is a large-scale feature, the implementation will take about six months.

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