AI-Powered Skin Diagnostics: How Tech Is Revolutionizing Dermatology

AI… Love it or hate it, it’s certainly a tool that’s spearheading incredible medical advances. In the field of dermatology, the technology has and continues to bring changes that are nothing short of revolutionary.

From a remote skin check to virtually instantaneous and incredibly in-depth digital skin analysis options, harnessing its power is changing the world of skin, hair, and nail care as we know it.

The Role of AI Dermatology Tools and Their Integration into Practice

Contrary to popular belief, AI tools are not that new. In the dermatological field, early use of the tech began in the 1980s. Back then, it was more in the realm of research, offering an additional aid for clinicians to consider differential diagnosis of, for example, skin cancer tumors.

Fast forward to today, and this initial technology has morphed into incredibly user-friendly, frontline apparatus that’s not only in daily use, but dramatically improves how we, as dermatologists, assess, diagnose, and treat our patients. This is as relevant for someone with a suspicious mole as it is for those having anti-aging treatments.

AI Dermatology Tools for Skin Cancer Analysis and Diagnosis

One of the biggest leaps is the use of cellphone-based technology (with a special dermatological lens) to quickly examine a mole or lesion. This can help with the initial decision as to whether it’s potentially cancerous. These deep learning algorithms are incredibly accurate and can assess far faster than a human, meaning that any suspicions can be quickly highlighted and passed to a skin cancer specialist for further evaluation.

In the same vein, there are also platforms that can be used to upload regular cellphone images, which are then assessed by an AI algorithm to return a potential diagnosis. While these aren’t a replacement for visiting a dermatologist, they can help signpost an issue that would benefit from professional advice.

AI for Digital Skin Analysis and Anti-Aging Treatments

The tech is, quite literally, bringing the future to the present. Aesthetic medicine, which includes treatments like fillers and injectables, dermaplaning, microneedling, laser and light treatments, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, and more, brings the best results when all aspects are taken into consideration.

What AI brings to the table isn’t just an analysis of how your skin is today, but it can use predictive modelling to forecast the outcome of treatments in the short, medium, and long-term. This is relevant for both anti-aging procedures and those that target other concerns, like sun damage, hyperpigmentation, acne, rosacea, eczema, psoriasis, etc.

This allows for highly targeted, individualized treatment plans dedicated to your exact needs.

How AI Tools are Benefiting Workflow and Improving Patient Care

Such tools benefit everyone involved. For patients, this includes:

• Faster diagnosis and reduced waiting times for serious conditions, such as skin cancer: In turn, this improves the prognosis, as well as potentially meaning less invasive treatments are required. At such an anxious time, the impact on your mental health shouldn’t be underestimated and the advantage of faster diagnostics is hugely beneficial here too.
• Targeted treatments equal better outcomes: AI tools can help optimize the best plan, both improving the potential results and helping to mitigate risk. Every procedure comes with potential side effects, but AI’s ability to analyze and make recommendations means these risk factors can be further reduced. For example, by basing the energy and wavelengths used in laser and light therapies on your skin type, tone, color, and more.
• See potential results before treatment: The beauty of tech, like augmented and virtual reality, allows patients to see in real time what the potential outcome of their chosen treatment will be.

Some of the benefits for clinicians are:

• Reduced workload means more patient-focused time: Tasks, such as writing reports and general admin, can be AI-generated. This frees the clinician to spend more time with patients face-to-face.
• Higher accuracy: In diagnosing conditions, thanks to AI flagging up when an issue potentially needs further investigation and offering differential diagnoses.
• Determining personalized treatment plans: Based on vast amounts of data that are wholly relevant to the individual.

In short, AI tools should be classified as an additional facet, rather than any kind of replacement to a dermatologist’s expertise. They also play a role in optimizing costs, potentially driving the price of advanced treatments down and, therefore, more accessible to a wider demographic.

If you fancy going a bit deeper into the subject, a good place to start is the National Library of Medicine article, Artificial Intelligence in Dermatology: Past, Present, and Future. Or you can book a consultation with one of our highly experienced dermatology team and let us do all the explaining for you.

Start your journey at Services | Bayou City Dermatology and call today to book an appointment.