Mpox Screen Lite: AI-Driven On-Device Offline Mpox Screening for Low-Resource African Mpox Emergency Response

Background: The 2024 Mpox outbreak, particularly severe in Africa with clade 1b emergence, has highlighted critical gaps in diagnostic capabilities in resource-limited settings. This study aimed to develop and validate an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven, on-device screening tool for Mpox, designed to function offline in low-resource environments. Methods: We developed a YOLOv8n-based deep learning model trained on 2,700 images (900 each of Mpox, other skin conditions, and normal skin), including synthetic data. The model was validated on 360 images and tested on 540 images. A larger external validation was conducted using 1,500 independent images. Performance metrics included accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, sensitivity, and specificity. Findings: The model demonstrated high accuracy (96%) in the final test set. For Mpox detection, it achieved 93% precision, 97% recall, and an F1-score of 95%. Sensitivity and specificity for Mpox detection were 97% and 96%, respectively. Performance remained consistent in the larger external validation, confirming the model's robustness and generalizability. Interpretation: This AI-driven screening tool offers a rapid, accurate, and scalable solution for Mpox detection in resource-constrained settings. Its offline functionality and high performance across diverse datasets suggest significant potential for improving Mpox surveillance and management, particularly in areas lacking traditional diagnostic infrastructure.

Mpox Detection Advanced: Rapid Epidemic Response Through Synthetic Data

Rapid development of disease detection models using computer vision is crucial in responding to medical emergencies, such as epidemics or bioterrorism events. Traditional data collection methods are often too slow in these scenarios, requiring innovative approaches for quick, reliable model generation from minimal data. Our study introduces a novel approach by constructing a comprehensive computer vision model to detect Mpox lesions using only synthetic data. Initially, these models generated a diverse set of synthetic images representing Mpox lesions on various body parts (face, back, chest, leg, neck, arm) across different skin tones as defined by the Fitzpatrick scale (fair, brown, dark skin). Subsequently, we trained and tested a vision model with this synthetic dataset to evaluate the diffusion models' efficacy in producing high-quality training data and its impact on the vision model's medical image recognition performance. The results were promising; the vision model achieved a 97% accuracy rate, with 96% precision and recall for Mpox cases, and similarly high metrics for normal and other skin disorder cases, demonstrating its ability to correctly identify true positives and minimize false positives. The model achieved an F1-Score of 96% for Mpox cases and 98% for normal and other skin disorders, reflecting a balanced precision-recall relationship, thus ensuring reliability and robustness in its predictions. Our proposed SynthVision methodology indicates the potential to develop accurate computer vision models with minimal data input for future medical emergencies.

Adapting an Artificial Intelligence Sexually Transmitted Diseases Symptom Checker Tool for Mpox Detection: The HeHealth Experience

Artificial Intelligence applications have shown promise in the management of pandemics and have been widely used to assist the identification, classification, and diagnosis of medical images. In response to the global outbreak of Monkeypox (Mpox), the HeHealth.ai team leveraged an existing tool to screen for sexually transmitted diseases to develop a digital screening test for symptomatic Mpox through AI approaches. Prior to the global outbreak of Mpox, the team developed a smartphone app, where app users can use their own smartphone cameras to take pictures of their own penises to screen for symptomatic STD. The AI model was initially developed using 5000 cases and use a modified convolutional neural network to output prediction scores across visually diagnosable penis pathologies including Syphilis, Herpes Simplex Virus, and Human Papilloma Virus. From June 2022 to October 2022, a total of about 22,000 users downloaded the HeHealth app, and about 21,000 images have been analyzed using HeHealth AI technology. We then engaged in formative research, stakeholder engagement, rapid consolidation images, a validation study, and implementation of the tool from July 2022. From July 2022 to October 2022, a total of 1000 Mpox related images had been used to train the Mpox symptom checker tool. Our digital symptom checker tool showed accuracy of 87% to rule in Mpox and 90% to rule out symptomatic Mpox. Several hurdles identified included issues of data privacy and security for app users, initial lack of data to train the AI tool, and the potential generalizability of input data. We offer several suggestions to help others get started on similar projects in emergency situations, including engaging a wide range of stakeholders, having a multidisciplinary team, prioritizing pragmatism, as well as the concept that big data in fact is made up of small data.

The Development and Performance of a Machine Learning Based Mobile Platform for Visually Determining the Etiology of Penile Pathology

Machine-learning algorithms can facilitate low-cost, user-guided visual diagnostic platforms for addressing disparities in access to sexual health services. We developed a clinical image dataset using original and augmented images for five penile diseases: herpes eruption, syphilitic chancres, penile candidiasis, penile cancer, and genital warts. We used a U-net architecture model for semantic pixel segmentation into background or subject image, the Inception-ResNet version 2 neural architecture to classify each pixel as diseased or non-diseased, and a salience map using GradCAM++. We trained the model on a random 91% sample of the image database using 150 epochs per image, and evaluated the model on the remaining 9% of images, assessing recall (or sensitivity), precision, specificity, and F1-score (accuracy). Of the 239 images in the validation dataset, 45 (18.8%) were of genital warts, 43 (18.0%) were of HSV infection, 29 (12.1%) were of penile cancer, 40 (16.7%) were of penile candidiasis, 37 (15.5%) were of syphilitic chancres, and 45 (18.8%) were of non-diseased penises. The overall accuracy of the model for correctly classifying the diseased image was 0.944. Between July 1st and October 1st 2023, there were 2,640 unique users of the mobile platform. Among a random sample of submissions (n=437), 271 (62.0%) were from the United States, 64 (14.6%) from Singapore, 41 (9.4%) from Candia, 40 (9.2%) from the United Kingdom, and 21 (4.8%) from Vietnam. The majority (n=277 [63.4%]) were between 18 and 30 years old. We report on the development of a machine-learning model for classifying five penile diseases, which demonstrated excellent performance on a validation dataset. That model is currently in use globally and has the potential to improve access to diagnostic services for penile diseases.

SynthVision -- Harnessing Minimal Input for Maximal Output in Computer Vision Models using Synthetic Image data

Rapid development of disease detection computer vision models is vital in response to urgent medical crises like epidemics or events of bioterrorism. However, traditional data gathering methods are too slow for these scenarios necessitating innovative approaches to generate reliable models quickly from minimal data. We demonstrate our new approach by building a comprehensive computer vision model for detecting Human Papilloma Virus Genital warts using only synthetic data. In our study, we employed a two phase experimental design using diffusion models. In the first phase diffusion models were utilized to generate a large number of diverse synthetic images from 10 HPV guide images explicitly focusing on accurately depicting genital warts. The second phase involved the training and testing vision model using this synthetic dataset. This method aimed to assess the effectiveness of diffusion models in rapidly generating high quality training data and the subsequent impact on the vision model performance in medical image recognition. The study findings revealed significant insights into the performance of the vision model trained on synthetic images generated through diffusion models. The vision model showed exceptional performance in accurately identifying cases of genital warts. It achieved an accuracy rate of 96% underscoring its effectiveness in medical image classification. For HPV cases the model demonstrated a high precision of 99% and a recall of 94%. In normal cases the precision was 95% with an impressive recall of 99%. These metrics indicate the model capability to correctly identify true positive cases and minimize false positives. The model achieved an F1 Score of 96% for HPV cases and 97% for normal cases. The high F1 Score across both categories highlights the balanced nature of the model precision and recall ensuring reliability and robustness in its predictions.