Deep Automatic Alignment of Mpox Dermatological Hand Photography

Mpox is a viral illness with heavy cutaneous involvement. Automatic tracking of mpox lesion progression is critical in determining the resolution of evolving lesions. This work introduces a novel application of deep learning for lesion monitoring through alignment of dermatological hand photographs. By adapting the VoxelMorph framework for 2D photographic data, we explore key point alignment across serial images. We trained our neural network model on a unique dataset of 1,658 hand images and evaluated its performance on a test set of 254 images. Additionally, we validated the method's generalizability with a supplementary set of 500 images, which included extensive Mpox infection. Our findings indicate modest yet significant improvements in key points and lesion center registration across different regularization strengths. Although promising, the complexity of hand structure presents challenges, requiring cautious application and further refinement, especially in regions with intense spatial discontinuities, such as interdigital areas.