The method for automated globule color recognition in dermatoscopic images of skin neoplasms

Modern computerized systems for the diagnosis of skin neoplasms are mainly focused on issuing recommendations to patients, but the application of designated systems in clinical practice remains limited. It is supposed that it is connected with the lack of qualitative researches of such systems and low trust of doctors to non-transparent mechanisms of their work. The creation of a medical decision support system based on the logic of the doctor's diagnostic search can solve this problem. An important task of the system is to recognize the color of globules of skin neoplasms, but the methods of solving the task have not yet been described in scientific publications. The application of the method of automated color recognition of globules on dermatoscopic images of skin neoplasms is considered, which allows recognizing globules by color in accordance with a palette of 7 colors (blue, yellow-white, brown, red, orange, nude, black). An original set of 9 color features has been developed as part of this method. The Random Forest method was applied to classify the images based on the feature (globule color). According to the results of the experiment conducted with a sample of 313 images, the classification accuracy was 91 %. The developed method can be implemented programmatically within the framework of a modified pattern analysis algorithm, and this method can also be used as part of a medical decision support system for the diagnosis of skin cancer.