Gerry Palmers Tech 05.19.2021 23:May PM EDT

Google Derm Assist App Can Check for Skin Cancer, Other Conditions With Your Phone: How to Use and More Details

Google Derm Assist App Promises to Check for Skin Cancer, Other Conditions With Your Phone: How to Use and More Details — Got a problem with that "thing" on your skin? A Google Android 12 phone will help you spot and identify it! Photo : Leon Neal/Getty Images

Got a problem with that "thing" on your skin? A Google Android 12 phone will help you spot and identify it.

Among the many cool features Google introduced in the Android 12 Beta 1 version is a "Dermatology Assist tool" that will form part of the final version of the OS later this year.

Derm Assist App: How to Use It

Using artificial intelligence, this web-based Derm Assist application can help people in identifying skin, hair or nail conditions. Users would simply take pictures of the skin, hair or nail concern, then answer a series of questions about such details as their skin type. The tool would then provide a list of possible conditions it is trained to recognize, including possible skin cancer.

Google noted in a blog post, however, that the tool is not designed to diagnose the problem.

The tool can recognize 288 skin conditions, but it's recommended to seek professional help after spotting the condition, such as undergoing actual medical diagnosis and treatment. The tool merely identifies what the condition is based on what the AI is trained to know.

Derm Assist App Trained to Process Millions of Images Showing Skin Marks

It seems the AI on this tool surely knows a lot. It has been trained to process a dataset of 65,000 images of diagnosed conditions, as well as millions more of certain marks people see on their skin. It also looks at thousands of photos of healthy skin. The AI model also considers factors such as age, skin type, sex, and race when it suggests possible conditions.

Users will also be asked a series of questions online about the condition to make a more accurate analysis.

The tool is referenced from other Google tools that were developed to spot symptoms of such diseases as cancer and tuberculosis.

Derm Assist App to Help Clinicians Offer Targeted Therapies

Experts interviewed by the BBC indicated that such AI advancements would help clinicians offer more specific treatments to patients. Professor Tim Underwood, head of cancer services at the University of Southampton, said such AI tools "informs the conversation about what the diagnosis might be and what treatment to offer the individual."

However, Google sees it not as a substitute for medical advice but rather a good alternative to people searching about the condition online. It further said that the tool is intended to just provide access to "authoritative information so (users) can make a more informed decision about (their) next step."

Derm Assist App 'On Par with US Board-Certified Dermatologists'

The tool is culmination of over three years of machine learning research and product development, Google further noted. It said a study published on Nature Medicine revealed that Google's AI system could attain accuracy in assessing skin diseases "that is on par with US board-certified dermatologists."

Google said in a report on The Verge that the tool spotted and identified the correct skin condition in its top three suggestions list, 84 percent of the time. It likewise included the correct condition as among the possible issues 97 percent of the time.