# Contrastive Deep Learning Reveals Age Biomarkers in Histopathological Skin Biopsies

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.16956 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16956/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 26 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Segment Anything Model (SAM) for Digital Pathology: Assess Zero-shot Segmentation on Whole Slide Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04155/) (2023)
- [Artificial Intelligence for Digital and Computational Pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06148/) (2023)
- [One Model is All You Need: Multi-Task Learning Enables Simultaneous Histology Image Segmentation and Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00077/) (2022)
- [Neural Ordinary Differential Equations for Semantic Segmentation of Individual Colon Glands](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10470/) (2019)
- [Utilizing Automated Breast Cancer Detection to Identify Spatial Distributions of Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Invasive Breast Cancer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.10841/) (2019)
- [Detection and Localization of Melanoma Skin Cancer in Histopathological Whole Slide Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03014/) (2023)
- [Interpretable Prediction of Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma Recurrence With Self-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12204/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As global life expectancy increases, so does the burden of chronic diseases, yet individuals exhibit considerable variability in the rate at which they age. Identifying biomarkers that distinguish fast from slow ageing is crucial for understanding the biology of ageing, enabling early disease detection, and improving prevention strategies. Using contrastive deep learning, we show that skin biopsy images alone are sufficient to determine an individual's age. We then use visual features in histopathology slides of the skin biopsies to construct a novel biomarker of ageing. By linking with comprehensive health registers in Denmark, we demonstrate that visual features in histopathology slides of skin biopsies predict mortality and the prevalence of chronic age-related diseases. Our work highlights how routinely collected health data can provide additional value when used together with deep learning, by creating a new biomarker for ageing which can be actively used to determine mortality over time.