Breaking Diagnostic Barriers: Vision Transformers Redefine Monkeypox Detection
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background/Objective: The global spread of Monkeypox (Mpox) has highlighted the urgent need for rapid, accurate diagnostic tools. Traditional methods like polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are resource-intensive, while skin image-based detection offers a promising alternative. This study evaluates the effectiveness of vision transformers (ViTs) for automated Mpox detection. Methods: By fine-tuning a pre-trained ViT model on an Mpox lesion image dataset, a robust ViT-based transfer learning (TL) model was created. Performance was assessed relative to convolutional neural network (CNN)-based TL models and ViT models trained from scratch across key metrics: accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Furthermore, a transferability measure was utilized to assess the effectiveness of feature transfer to Mpox images. Results: The results show that the ViT model outperformed a CNN, achieving an AUC of 0.948 and an accuracy of 0.942 with a p-value of less than 0.05 across all metrics, highlighting its potential for accurate and scalable Mpox detection. Moreover, the ViT models yielded a better hypothesis margin-based transferability measure, highlighting its effectiveness in transferring useful learning weights to Mpox images. Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) visualizations also confirmed that the ViT model attends to clinically relevant features, supporting its interpretability and reliability for diagnostic use. Conclusions: The results from this study suggest that ViT offers superior accuracy, making it a valuable tool for Mpox early detection in field settings, especially where conventional diagnostics are limited. This approach could support faster outbreak response and improved resource allocation in public health systems.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".