# Visual Bias and Interpretability in Deep Learning for Dermatological Image Analysis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04573 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04573/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 36 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [Densely Connected Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.06993/) (2016)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Adversarial Discriminative Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.05464/) (2017)
- [PAD-UFES-20: a skin lesion dataset composed of patient data and clinical images collected from smartphones](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00478/) (2020)
- [A Web-based Mpox Skin Lesion Detection System Using State-of-the-art Deep Learning Models Considering Racial Diversity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14169/) (2023)
- [gWaveNet: Classification of Gravity Waves from Noisy Satellite Data using Custom Kernel Integrated Deep Learning Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.14674/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Satellite Object Localization with Dilated Convolutions and Attention-aided Spatial Pooling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05599/) (2025)
- [Efficient Leaf Disease Classification and Segmentation using Midpoint Normalization Technique and Attention Mechanism](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21316/) (2025)
- [A Multi-Scale Attention-Enhanced Architecture for Gravity Wave Localization in Satellite Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02704/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [TFFM: Topology-Aware Feature Fusion Module via Latent Graph Reasoning for Retinal Vessel Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.19136/) (2026)
- [IViT: A Novel Interpretable Visual Transformer for Skin Disease Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22892/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Accurate skin disease classification is a critical yet challenging task due to high inter-class similarity, intra-class variability, and complex lesion textures. While deep learning-based computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems have shown promise in automating dermatological assessments, their performance is highly dependent on image pre-processing and model architecture. This study proposes a deep learning framework for multi-class skin disease classification, systematically evaluating three image pre-processing techniques: standard RGB, CMY color space transformation, and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE). We benchmark the performance of pre-trained convolutional neural networks (DenseNet201, Efficient-NetB5) and transformer-based models (ViT, Swin Transformer, DinoV2 Large) using accuracy and F1-score as evaluation metrics. Results show that DinoV2 with RGB pre-processing achieves the highest accuracy (up to 93%) and F1-scores across all variants. Grad-CAM visualizations applied to RGB inputs further reveal precise lesion localization, enhancing interpretability. These findings underscore the importance of effective pre-processing and model choice in building robust and explainable CAD systems for dermatology.