{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T18:28:06Z","timestamp":1790360886530,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"23","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,11,27]],"date-time":"2024-11-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1732665600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Epworth Medical Foundation, The Royal Melbourne Hospital Foundation, Telematics Trust, Tour de Cure, and the Australian Chinese Medical Association Victoria"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Cancers"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background\/Objective: Penile cancer is aggressive and rapidly progressive. Early recognition is paramount for overall survival. However, many men delay presentation due to a lack of awareness and social stigma. This pilot study aims to develop a convolutional neural network (CNN) model to differentiate penile cancer from precancerous and benign penile lesions. Methods: The CNN was developed using 136 penile lesion images sourced from peer-reviewed open access publications. These images included 65 penile squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 44 precancerous lesions, and 27 benign lesions. The dataset was partitioned using a stratified split into training (64%), validation (16%), and test (20%) sets. The model was evaluated using ten trials of 10-fold internal cross-validation to ensure robust performance assessment. Results: When distinguishing between benign penile lesions and penile SCC, the CNN achieved an Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUROC) of 0.94, with a sensitivity of 0.82, specificity of 0.87, positive predictive value of 0.95, and negative predictive value of 0.72. The CNN showed reduced discriminative capability in differentiating precancerous lesions from penile SCC, with an AUROC of 0.74, sensitivity of 0.75, specificity of 0.65, PPV of 0.45, and NPV of 0.88. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate the potential of artificial intelligence in identifying penile SCC. Limitations of this study include the small sample size and reliance on photographs from publications. Further refinement and validation of the CNN using real-life data are needed.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/cancers16233971","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,11,27]],"date-time":"2024-11-27T08:17:42Z","timestamp":1732695462000},"page":"3971","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Snap Diagnosis: Developing an Artificial Intelligence Algorithm for Penile Cancer Detection from Photographs"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Jianliang","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"EJ Whitten Prostate Cancer Research Centre, Epworth Healthcare, Melbourne, VIC 3005, Australia"},{"name":"Department of Urology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"},{"name":"Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"},{"name":"Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Genitourinary Oncology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jonathan S.","family":"O\u2019Brien","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Urology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"},{"name":"Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"},{"name":"Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Genitourinary Oncology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kishor","family":"Nandakishor","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Niranjan J.","family":"Sathianathen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Urology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiasian","family":"Teh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Genitourinary Oncology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5609-3769","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Todd","family":"Manning","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Surgery, Austin Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dixon T. S.","family":"Woon","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"EJ Whitten Prostate Cancer Research Centre, Epworth Healthcare, Melbourne, VIC 3005, Australia"},{"name":"Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"},{"name":"Department of Surgery, Austin Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Declan G.","family":"Murphy","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"},{"name":"Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Genitourinary Oncology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Damien","family":"Bolton","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Surgery, Austin Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Justin","family":"Chee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"MURAC Health, East Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Marimuthu","family":"Palaniswami","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8553-5618","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nathan","family":"Lawrentschuk","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"EJ Whitten Prostate Cancer Research Centre, Epworth Healthcare, Melbourne, VIC 3005, Australia"},{"name":"Department of Urology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"},{"name":"Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"},{"name":"Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Genitourinary Oncology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,11,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11","DOI":"10.1038\/s41572-021-00246-5","article-title":"Penile cancer","volume":"7","author":"Thomas","year":"2021","journal-title":"Nat. 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