Mayo Clinic in Florida is exploring the use of artificial intelligence to test for skin allergies.
Allergic contact dermatitis results in a red, itchy rash caused by allergies. People are not born with these allergies, which develop over time in response to environmental stimuli. Fragrances and exposure to nickel, common in many body piercings, are frequent causes of outbreaks.
Dr. Alison Bruce, a South Africa-trained dermatologist, is part of the Derm AI team at Mayo Clinic Florida that is looking into making a traditional test for the condition more convenient for patients and doctors by using AI to analyze outbreaks.
Testing for allergic contact dermatitis is currently a weeklong process in which the cause of a skin allergy is determined by a patch test.
First, 30 to 100 adhesive patches containing allergens are applied to the patient’s back for 48 hours. Once the patches are removed, it can take another two days to analyze and diagnose the cause of the rash.
The Derm AI team’s work with AI began after Bruce spoke about the process with her husband, Charles Bruce, a cardiologist and Mayo Clinic Florida’s chief innovation officer.
“He was the one who actually started us thinking when he saw the way we do patch tests, which is a cumbersome process. He asked if there isn’t a better way to do this. That is kind of what got us thinking,” Alison Bruce said.
Four years ago, a team of doctors and AI specialists at Mayo Clinic Florida began meeting nearly every Friday to brainstorm the problem.
The Derm AI team of doctors and technicians is developing a process to reduce the testing time to a bit more than two days. They want to make a kit that the patient could use at home.
The patches would be smaller than current versions and fit on the arm, rather than the back. After two days, the patient could take pictures of the resulting rash, with AI automatically examining the image to determine the cause of the rash.
An at-home kit would reduce the number of doctor visits and give access to people who cannot readily see a dermatologist, Alison Bruce said.
Using 30,000 photos of patch results from previous patients, the team trained AI to diagnose the different rashes.
Results are promising. However, there are still challenges, Alison Bruce said.
“The database that we had trained the AI from, which was our Mayo photographs, were largely built of pale-skinned people, white or fair-skinned,” she said.
“We did not have a lot of representation of skin of color, the darker skin tones, the browns and blacks, and that’s important if you’re going to democratize and test patients at scale across the entire country.”
In an effort to gather a wider skin tone sample, Derm AI put out a request for volunteers. They sought 200 volunteers and received 100 more applications than needed.
“The exciting thing about this is that there was huge interest in the trial,” she said.
“So we had more people wanting to enroll than we could actually accommodate, which for us was very, very validating. It illustrated that contact dermatitis, and people’s desire to determine if they have allergies, is certainly very profound.”
Because the team wants to make the test an at-home kit, they are also addressing the problem of AI having to evaluate less-than-perfect pictures.
Besides developing a working product, the team is seeking funding to continue its work. It has applied for a federal Small Business Technology Transfer grant that shows promise, she said.
The grants are often used to fund nonprofit research.
“It’s money that is provided by the federal government, specifically to help support academic institutions that have good, innovative ideas, but don’t necessarily have the resources that pharma or industry may have to bring those ideas to fruition,” Alison Bruce said.
With funding, the next steps for Derm AI are to develop a prototype, conduct tests and apply for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to place the product on the market.
“There’s a good amount of interest from folks about this. I think people recognize the need and see the opportunity,” she said.
“About 20% of the population is estimated at some point in their lives to suffer from contact dermatitis.”