Synthetic generation of clinical skin images in pathology

Abstract

We disclose the generation and training of Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to synthesize clinical images with skin conditions. Synthetic images for a pre-specified skin condition are generated, while being able to vary its size, location and the underlying skin color. We demonstrate that the generated images are of high fidelity using objective GAN evaluation metrics. The synthetic images are not only visually similar to real images, but also embody the respective skin conditions. Additionally, synthetic skin images can be used as a data augmentation technique for training a skin condition classifier, and improve the ability of the classifier to detect rare but malignant conditions.